


There's Always Tom Morrow (Season Two)

by SASundance



Series: Director Morrow [2]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Consequences for Actions, Faked Suicide, Following protocol, Gen, Handling of evidence, Procedural faux pas, Season Two tags, Speaking Truth to Power, Sworn oaths, Tattoos, chain of command, doing what's right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:56:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 63,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SASundance/pseuds/SASundance
Summary: This is a look at how things might have gone if the MCRT had to face the consequences of ignoring protocol, procedures and the rule of law. In this universe, Tom Morrow holds his agents accountable and delivers well-earnt smackdowns and consequences when they screw up.This series consists of tags from season 2 episodes, each tag is a stand-alone vignette. At the end of each tag, everything will revert to canon norms again.There will be crossovers with characters appearing in guest and often minor roles in selected episodes from shows. There are numerous minor characters from the show and I also use OCs.
Series: Director Morrow [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1617778
Comments: 256
Kudos: 451





	1. See No Evil: Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> This series, like the first season, focuses on tags, mostly one-shots for each episode in Season Two. The idea came about while I was watching these early episodes because it struck me, yet again, that for a police procedural drama, there are an awful lot of times when procedures, even laws are ignored. I started writing the first series before the start of the 13th season. As I begin this new series in early 2020, I still can’t help wondering if the writers had been focused more on making sure that protocols and procedures were observed (including the chain of command, as opposed to going for cheap laughs in that first couple of series) how would it have impacted on how the show,? How would the team have evolved? 
> 
> Warnings: Since I’m mostly focusing on faux pas and failing to follow procedure, don’t expect there to be a lot of warm and fuzzy team moments. Although Tom isn’t as opposed to handing out ‘good jobs’ when they’re warranted as Gibbs, so there might be a few sappy moments coming up. *Spoilers ~ Terminal Leave* 
> 
> Disclaimer: These characters don’t belong to me – if they did, I’d make sure they observe the law and accepted procedure a darn sight more than they do on the show. These tags are purely for entertainment purposes and as such, I don’t make any money from them.  
> My goal in writing this series is that I hope at the end of each tag to leave readers wondering how these endings might have changed canon. Feel free to share.
> 
> Final point, I already have seven tags written for this series (apart from Lost and Found, which was penned in the last couple of weeks) some were written as far back as 2016. I tend to write tags as I receive inspiration, not sequentially. Over the years, my style has changed quite a bit, so when you read these previously written tags, you’ll probably notice the difference in style and maybe wonder why.

Series 02: There’s Always Tom Morrow

Episode 01: See No Evil

Title: Lost and Found

Characters: Tom Morrow, Delores Bromstead

Delores Bromstead, Assistant Manager of NCIS’ Department of Human Resources carefully read through the statements before checking that the appropriate form, the C304 had been completed correctly. She wanted there to be no mistake, no sweeping this under the carpet due to a technicality. Not that Delores made those type of mistakes, but she was willing to admit she was nervous. She knew she was taking on a formidable foe, but this was a matter of principle. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t let this issue go, even though she was highly aware that it would probably be career-ending. Well, so be it!

She understood that when you crossed a line once, it became much easier to do it again. So how many times could you turn a blind eye to rules and regulations before you lose your soul?

How many times could you ignore the law before you found yourself on the extremely slippery slope of corruption? To someone who was as morally black and white as Delores, where right was right and wrong was always wrong, she believed that once was all it took. Not just for an individual but for a team and the whole damned agency to shift its moral centre and make it just that little bit easier the next time.

And Bromstead knew, as sure as the sun will rise each day that there would ALWAYS be a next time in law enforcement. Criminals or high-placed officials were constantly on the lookout for corrupt individuals willing and able to manipulate the law for their personal gain. It was the nature of the beast.

Sighing as she glanced at her Longines white gold bracelet watch (a birthday gift from her partner several years ago) to check on the time, she knew she had to go. Donning her jacket, she picked up her voluminous file and left her office, headed for the elevator to take her up to the executive level for her appointment with the director. No one observing the tall, thin middle-aged administrator would suspect that she was in any way nervous about the upcoming meeting.

Delores was aware that she wasn’t well-liked by many of the NCIS employees. She was seen as an insignificant bureaucrat, delighting in enforcing a bunch of pettifogging rules and regulation, unappreciative of the seriousness of their work, merely basking in her own importance. She heard the scuttlebutt – she was a frigidly bitter pencil pusher or alternatively she was a sex-starved spinster whose only release was making field agents’ lives a misery. She’d even heard one disgruntled probationary agent, taken to task for his sloppy timesheets, suggest that in her off-duty hours she moonlighted as a leather-clad dominatrix wielding a riding crop on naïve client’s asses.

Delores had snorted with amusement at that particularly colourful and creative scenario. The truth was that Delores’ and her partner, Roger had a normal healthy sex life and in her time off she competed in field archery. Currently, her ranking was seventh in Virginia. Not that she’d ever share her personal life with her colleagues – she was a private person.

As she exited the elevator and strode into the director’s outer office, his personal assistant smiled at her. “Hi Delores, the director is on a call. It shouldn’t be too long.”

The administrator smiled back at Cynthia Sommers. “How are you doing, Cyn? Any fun plans for the weekend?” she asked, making small talk to distract herself from the difficult meeting which lay ahead.

Sommers chuckled sardonically, “Oh yeah, I’m cleaning out the fridge and defrosting it.” She said. “And you?”

Delores had a tournament in Maryland, but she wasn’t going to mention that, so she said, “Cleaning out my wardrobe and donating stuff to Goodwill.” The HR assistant manager rolled her eyes at the thought of so much exhilaration.

Cynthia smiled. “Exciting lives we lead, hah?” she joked before her phone rang and she picked up the receiver. “Yes, Director, Ms Bromstead is here. Yes, Sir.”

Looking into Delores' face, she nodded her head as she gently hung up the phone. “Director Morrow will see you now, Delores,” she informed her.

As Delores acknowledged the order calmly and headed toward the door that led to Director Morrow’s inner sanctum, Cynthia wished her luck. The administrator was momentarily caught by surprise. Did she know what the meeting was about? Did she know how importantly Delores regarded the outcome of this meeting? Did she know about the letter that she’d prepared last night and was ready to tender, should the meeting go the way she feared it might.

Realising that it was impossible, she chided herself. She hadn’t told the director the nature of the grievances, just that she’d received a number of serious complaints about an employee. There was no way he would know who or what, therefore Cynthia was probably picking up on how tense she was while waiting to be called into their meeting.

Knocking resolutely, she opened the door after being invited to enter. Looking at Morrow, seated at his desk, writing, he flicked a glance at her cordially, before returning to his leather-bound book which Delores realised was a calendar. He quickly finished writing in it and Dolores’ keen eyesight noted that it was for two weeks hence. Closing the book and slipping it to the side, he gave the assistant HR manager his full attention, sizing her up swiftly.

Exhaling, he asked, “Do you want to do this here,” he gestured towards his desk, ”Or at the conference table, Ms Bromstead?”

She thought about it for several seconds before replying politely. “I think because of the amount of material, it might be easier to do this at your table, so we can spread out, Sir.”

He sighed, probably understanding from her statement that this was serious and or complicated. Of course, he likely knew that already. Minor infractions did not usually require the head of the federal agency to get involved in a complaint unless it was serious. Standing up, he accompanied her over to the table and took a seat catty-corner to the administrator.

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door, an invitation to enter and Cynthia appeared, carrying a tray filled with refreshments. She bustled around placing a water jug and glasses within easy reach. She added a cup of strong black coffee beside Delores and a cup of earl grey tea with a lemon segment beside the director, along with half a dozen plain cookies. Somers flashed each of them a bright smile before taking her leave. Both Delores and Morrow’s thankyous accompanying her discreet retreat.

As the director and his manager sipped their respective poisons careful so they didn’t burn their mouths, Morrow waited patiently for Delores to begin. Realising it was never going to be easy, she steeled herself and began. Opening up her file, she extracted the first page of the C304 complaint form outlining the charges and pushed the form across the table.

Tom Morrow slipped on his reading glasses and looked over the form, remaining expressionless. “Two accusations of battery? Those are serious allegation, Ms Bromstead. Who are the complainants? The victims?”

Delores shook her head minutely, possibly unaware of the nonverbal cue. “No Sir. The victims refused to make an official complaint. They claimed it as was just a joke.”

Withdrawing another form from the file, she checked it briefly even though she knew it was completed correctly before passing it to him.

Raising his eyebrows at the complainants’ identities, he said mildly, “Two very steady agents, not given to exaggeration or leaping to the wrong conclusions.” He stated tersely.

Delores nodded her agreement. Ric Balboa had been a supervisory special agent for four years now and Andrea Nichols was the senior field agent for the financial fraud unit. She was often accused of being a little too unimaginative, needing to become more of an abstract thinker. It was unlikely she had rushed to judgement and Agent Balboa was a straight shooter. He wasn’t in the habit of making complaints against fellow agents. The integrity of both agents was why she had taken their complaints so seriously.

Wincing slightly because this was not something that could in all good conscience be swept under the rug, he made eye contact with the assistant manager. “You investigated the two incidences, I take it?”

Delores stared right back. “Yes, Director Morrow, I did.”

“And were you able to find any other witnesses?”

By the tone of his voice, Delores was unsure if he was hoping there was or hoping there wasn’t further corroboration.

Having already anticipated his response, she had a list of names which she duly passed across to him. He nodded his thanks and studied the list gravely.

“And these employees corroborate Agent Nichols and Balboa’s accounts of the events?”

“They do, Director.”

He shook his head. “Anything else you wish to add, Ms Bromstead?”

Delores nodded. “Yes, I secured video security footage of both incidents.”

She handed over a flash drive and Morrow loaded it to play the footage up on his plasma television screen. Delores knew that although it was in black and white and a bit fuzzy, it clearly showed both incidents. The first incident showed Special Agent Caitlin Todd reaching down, grabbing someone who seemed to be hiding under her desk, grasping him roughly by both ears. The footage showing her appearing to drag him out from under the desk. The slightly pudgy young male, who Morrow had no trouble in identifying as Special Agent Timothy McGee from the field office at Norfolk Naval Base, looked both scared and uncomfortable.

Todd then appeared to bawl him out, although since the video footage was sans sound, he didn’t know what they were saying. Still the young man looked like he was about to fill his pants.

Morrow stopped the tape and looked at Delores, appraisingly. “Do we know why McGee was hiding underneath Agent Todd’s desk?”

“According to my investigations, he claimed to be fixing the computers.”

Looking confused, he asked, “Don’t we have specific people for that?” he asked bemusedly.

“Yes, but due to the air-con breaking down, the contractors refused to proceed until the cooling was fixed.”

“I was aware of that fact. So why was an NCIS agent crawling around on the floor and under desks?”

Delores shrugged. “Probably trying to curry favour with Special Agent Gibbs. He got a spot on the MCRT, during this case, so I guess it worked.” The assistant manager of HR observed ironically.

Still, Tom mused, even if Agent McGee wasn’t engaged in doing something legitimate and just being creepy, Todd shouldn’t have hauled him out by his ears. Even criminals are presumed innocent until proven guilty. And what she’d done certainly seemed to fit the definition of battery, although he’d need to get a formal opinion from Legal.

Morrow nodded ruefully before clicking the tape to move it forward. Gibbs arriving and apparently interrogating Todd and McGee.

Once again Morrow stopped the tape. “Tell me Gibbs reprimanded Agent Todd and wrote her up?” He pleaded.

“Unfortunately, no. He told Agent DiNozzo to put his shirt on because it was offensive to him. He did want to know why McGee hadn’t returned to Norfolk and when Special Agent Gibbs learnt that McGee was updating the computer network, he was pleased and actually praised him.”

Something about his assistant manager’s tone clued in the director. “And that is a problem, because?”

Delores pursed her lips before responding. “Aside from him failing to remonstrate or discipline Agent Todd, you mean?”

He acknowledged her point with a wince.

Delores smiled grimly at his response. “Yes, Director, it’s a problem alright because it violates the terms of the contract which NCIS signed with the company who’d tendered for and won the government contract to perform the work. It also violates a number of occupational health and safety regulations, which is why the company refused to proceed with the work in the first place,” she stated tartly.

“The company is threatening to sue NCIS for allowing non-unionised staff to carry out non-approved work. It’s a mess! Kathryn Russetine is planning on briefing you on the situation later today after she’d had a chance to consult with Legal,“ she explained, irritated.

Morrow grimaced, grateful for the heads up – he was so not looking forward to cleaning up that particular mess. Contractual disputes and Union blockades – he didn’t need that shitstorm. Refocusing his attention back on the battery charges, he picked up the remote and reactivated the black and white tape.

Gibbs was talking to Agent Todd. Meanwhile, DiNozzo and McGee were having a conversation when Todd walked past Agent DiNozzo and he doubled over in pain.

Stopping the footage again for clarification, he looked at Delores. “Is this the attack in question”

She nodded. “That’s it.”

“What just happened?”

“Agent Todd elbowed DiNozzo in the ribs, Sir,” she explained. “And if you’re wanting to know what caused her to attack him, according to Agent McGee, DiNozzo was inquiring as to the type of undergarments Agent Todd was wearing,” she said, disapprovingly.

“And Gibbs didn’t step in and discipline either agent for this incident?”

Looking furious, she told him. “No, Sir. Like the incident with McGee, he studiously ignored it. He was more invested in beating his cell phone into submission.” Delores said, sarcastically.

Rolling his eyes, Morrow asked acerbically, “How many cell phones did Jethro “rebooted” this month?”

“That was his third,” she responded, aggravated since the budget that was allocated to restocking Gibbs cell phones each month was an obscene amount of money for such a small agency like NCIS, who had continual budgetary constraints. In her opinion, the situation was a total travesty. It galled the frugally minded administrator that everyone pandered to the massive, yet super fragile ego of the man-child who reigned over the agency like a petty tyrant. 

Morrow stared at the frozen screen. “Is there anything else of significance on the tape that I should see?”

Delores nodded decisively. “Keep watching for a few minutes more.”

Wondering what else he was going to see; Morrow directed his attention to the slightly grainy film. The three agents swung into action. What was apparent almost immediately, was that DiNozzo was wincing and rubbing his right wrist and several minutes later, he was still rubbing his right side. That was indicative that he was in some degree of pain.

He was confused. “Did Agent Todd’s elbow caught Agent DiNozzo’s wrist or his chest?”

“Both,” was her parsimonious rejoiner.

Sighing, the director looked at Delores getting straight to the point. “Did either man indicate that she hurt them?”

Delores shook her head. “On the contrary, Sir. As I said before, they claimed it was just joking around. And yet, DiNozzo’s physical reaction gives a lie to that assertion, as does McGee. Their reactions appear to be genuine, Director, so I concluded they were subsequently lying to protect Todd.”

“Perhaps they were afraid, to tell the truth.”

“Or too embarrassed,” Delores commented dryly.

Sitting quietly, Tom contemplated the situation cautiously. He knew damned well why the Human Resources Department had brought this to his attention. If it had been any other team but the MCRT, then HR would have investigated and meted out punitive actions by now. In all probability, they would have started a criminal investigation, since both attacks appeared to Morrow to fit the definition of a felony.

However, it was the worst kept secret that Gibbs had TPTB in his back pocket. Morrow thought that it must seem to the rest of the agency as if Gibbs was above the law. The problem was that Gibbs’ influence when it mattered, trumped his own. Particularly when it came to matters regarding his own team, he did seem untouchable.

Smiling cynically, he asked. “Hypothetically, what would your recommendations be, Ms Bromstead?”

Delores pursed her lips in thought. “It is my understanding that Agent Todd has committed one count of assault and battery against Special McGee and another count of battery against Special Agent DiNozzo. As she is still within her probationary period until the end of the month, ideally, I’d like to see her terminated and facing charges to send an unequivocal message to staff that this behaviour will not be tolerated,” she stated wryly.

Feeling like there was a but at the end of her statement, Tom steepled his right and left index fingers together, “Why am I sensing a but here, Ms Bromstead?”

“Because of Special Agent Gibbs and his head-slapping, specifically of Agent DiNozzo, which also constitutes battery, at the least. But this is old news,” Delores stated dryly since the HR department had been baying for blood for months about this issue. Unsuccessfully.

“And when Special Agent McGee was informed that he’d been assigned to the MCRT, agents Todd and DiNozzo delivered a joint head slap to McGee as Gibbs looked on and said nothing. He smirked.”

“Special Agent Gibbs condoned it?” Morrow asked, angrily. “What am I saying, of course, he did.”

“Which is why I think that it would be problematic to focus solely on Todd’s assault and battery without addressing the genesis of the problem.”

Tom looked resigned. He could see where this was headed, unfortunately.

Sighing she muttered, resentfully, “And we know that’s never going to happen.”

Delores withdrew an envelope with Director Morrow’s name on it and passed it across to her boss resolutely. He frowned at the plain white envelope addressed to him as if it might bite him.

“What are you doing, Delores?” He asked, his voice filled with a sense of foreboding. He was no one’s fool and could recognise a gamechanger when he saw one.

She said formally, “In all good conscience, Sir, I cannot turn a blind eye to Gibbs’ blatant disrespect of the law. Today it’s assault and or battery of other agents. What’s next?” she asked rhetorically.

“We both know it’s a slippery slope when it comes to corruption and it could inevitably lead to Gibbs or his team ignoring procedures, for example, collecting evidence that results in a wrongful acquittal or even worse, convicts an innocent person. What about questioning suspects and not bothering to read them their Article 31’s or their Miranda Rights so that they get a conviction, Sir.

“Where does it end? Revenge killing? Turning a blind eye to crimes committed because the suspects are friends or family of agents. Agents handing out rough justice because they believe that since they carry a badge, they should be above the law and be judge, jury and executioner?”

Delores felt sick at the thought and glancing at the director; he was looking just as unhappy as she was feeling. So maybe he was listening. She hoped so.

“I may not be an agent, but I fervently believe in the justice system, Director Morrow. It isn’t a perfect system, but it is better than the alternative, therefore I can’t work for an organisation that allows an agent to flaunt the law. No one is above the law – and I won’t, no I can’t turn a blind eye to this situation any longer.”

Morrow was hanging his head, but he lifted his head to lock eyes with the fervent administrator, obviously thinking she was done and searching for a response. Unfortunately, she hadn’t finished twisting the knife into him just yet. 

“At the end of the day, I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not feel disgusted at my hypocrisy in working in law enforcement and ignoring the law. Since nothing is going to change with regard to Gibbs flaunting and ignoring the laws of the land, it’s time for me to leave.”

Tom appeared to be very moved by her impassioned call-to-arms and it had left him feeling incredibly ashamed. Although he had tried to rein in his lawless head of the MCRT, he’d always gotten shot down by SecNav and his motley mates.

Yet Delores was right if you condoned Jethro attacking his own agents - felonies in the eyes of the law they’d sworn to uphold, where did it stop? And make no mistake, looking the other way and letting him get away with breaking the law was flouting the law. It was also true that if you ignored one crime, it made it easier to overlook the next crime. 

The administrator had spoken the truth; no one should be above the law. Her wakeup call, about where ignoring Gibbs’ numerous transgressions could lead, was enough to shake him out of his lethargy – which he needed.

Maybe he hadn’t tried hard enough. Perhaps he should take a leaf out of his gutsy co-worker’s playbook.

Pushing the resignation letter back towards her, he said, “Do me a favour, Delores. Don’t submit that. If I’m going to fight for the justice system and the integrity of NCIS, I’m going to need principled people to stand by me.

“So, let’s talk about how we handle this toxic work culture of physically attacking agents which have been allowed to fester on the MCRT. Let’s figure out a solution.”

Delores stared long and hard at the director, having witnessed a myriad of emotions on his features while she’d delivered her impassioned plea. She’d seen shame, anger, remorse, resolute conviction and she hoped genuine commitment. The HR manager was silent as she considered her future before she shrugged. What did she have to lose-except the last of her faith that the law and justice were inviolable?

Leaning forward, she extended her hand and picked up her resignation letter, looking at the director square in the eyes.

“If you are truly serious about wanting to address this, then I’ll have your back, Sir. But please, don’t let me down.” She implored him gravely.

One week later:

The DC office was buzzing with a series of bombshell announcements regarding the personnel of the MCRT. The previous notification of Probationary Agent Timothy McGee’s assignment had been rescinded only days after he’d been assigned to the team. Apparently, it was due to his unauthorised rewiring of the computer network in the bullpen. Scuttlebutt around the office was that he’d been doing busywork, trying to impress Gibbs because he wanted a highly coveted spot on the team. A strategy which appeared to have been effective, since Gibbs had announced later that same day that McGee was joining the MCRT.

Gibbs clearly didn’t see anything wrong with McGee messing with the computer networks since he’d praised him, saying it would get him promoted. However, the IT company who’d won the contract to install a new computer network had not been as easily impressed. They’d sued NCIS because McGee carried out unauthorised work, claiming that the agency was in breach of their contract. Which was why conventional wisdom deemed McGee had been specifically sent to the IT department, since it as common knowledge that he’d been desperate to become a field agent. There were numerous betting pools flourishing on how long his banishment might last since it was seen by most to be a punitive transfer. 

Special Agent Caitlin Todd, the MCRT psychological profiler had been charged with three counts of battery against federal agents and was currently on suspension, pending the outcome of the charges. Everyone knew that if she was convicted, Todd would be facing immediately termination. As there were numerous witnesses to the alleged offences, plus the security feed from the bullpen, being found guilty looked to be a foregone conclusion. Considering she was still officially a probationary agent with several more weeks to run on her probationary period, she could have been terminated immediately. So, most people thought she was being treated with kid gloves.

Few people believed she would escape without a criminal record though, which would destroy her law enforcement career. Still, considering the stuff-ups she’d managed to squirm out of during her probationary period culminating in her permitting a witness/suspect to blow up a building and kill two people, many people believed that her removal was long overdue. Catlin Todd’s abrasive disposition and her superior attitude, presumably due to her former job as a Secret Service agent hadn’t won her a lot of friends at NCIS, either. Except for NCIS’ forensic scientist, Abigail Sciuto – the pair were as thick as thieves. 

The team’s SFA, Special Agent Tony DiNozzo had also been officially cautioned for one count of battery for his head slap of Probationary Agent McGee, in concert with Agent Todd after the announcement of his short-lived assignment to the MCRT. However, it had been decided in consultation with the FBI and NCIS’ HR officials that due to his supervisor having inflicted numerous head slaps on him in the last year (which had gone unpunished by the agency) that he should receive an official reprimand and it would be entered on his official jacket.

In additional, DiNozzo must attend compulsory classes on appropriate methods of communication between workmates. Plus, Agents DiNozzo and McGee would also be required to attend mandatory psychological counselling since they’d both been physically attacked by their teammates.

Yet as monumental as all these announcements and changes to the status quo were to DC staff, perhaps the biggest bombshell was Agent Gibbs had been relieved of command of the MCRT. This was supposedly due to allegations of multiple attacks (head slaps) on his senior field agent. Pending further investigations into his team management practices, Special Agent Gibbs had been reassigned to the USS Enterprise as the agent afloat. The current agent afloat, Stan Burly was being recalled, TAD to the MCRT.

Gibbs seemed to have gotten off quite lightly compared to the other members of the team. No big surprise to anyone; Gibbs was renowned for ignoring rules - except for his own rules and ignoring laws if they got in the way of his solving a case. So to most people, this demotion was astonishing news since Gibbs was seen as Teflon™ coated, i.e. nothing stuck to him, because of his friends in high places. The fact that he’d been demoted was HUGE!

Not only was it the talk of the agency in the DC office and beyond, but all the other alphabet agencies were abuzz with the news, too.

~oO0Oo~

Tom Morrow had arranged to meet Delores at midday for a catchup. Right on time, he heard a brusque knock on his door.

Steeling himself for the conversation ahead, he called, “Enter.”

As Delores opened the door, Tom Morrow was packing items from his desk into a box.

Tom smiled. “Thank you for coming, Ms Bromstead. Come, take a seat,” he told her, leaving off his packing and returning to sit down behind his desk.

Looking calmly resolute, he began speaking. “I asked you here partially to talk about the pending personnel changes. I’m sorry for not reading you in prior to my public statement, but I couldn’t run the risk that anything might be leaked beforehand.”

Delores’ frown suggested that she found it a rather odd statement, but she didn’t ask. Probably eager to know how he’d accomplished so many changes. Changes that had been blocked so many times before.

Morrow couldn’t blame Delores for her curiosity. The HR department had been complaining for many months about all the breaches that had been occurring on the MCRT, without getting any satisfaction. While Gibbs had always been a cowboy when it came to procedure, Special Agent DiNozzo had usually managed to contain Gibbs’ volatility. Well, until investigating the attempted assassination of the POTUS on Air Force One when he’d endangered Agent DiNozzo’s life and kicked off the current level of madness.

He couldn’t help shaking his head when he thought about it. It had been such an egregiously negligent incident – ordering him to impersonate a corpse. It had resulted in DiNozzo being thrown out of an autopsy van, still inside of a body bag onto the Beltway into oncoming traffic. It should have resulted in immediate censure. Instead, DiNozzo’s brush with death had been swept under the rug by TPTB, caught up in a round of testosterone-driven self-congratulatory chest-thumping for Gibbs having saved the life of the POTUS. Apparently, not all lives were regarded as equal. 

Morrow thought about the infantile level of one-upmanship which Gibbs and FBI agent Tobias Fornell engaged in whenever they worked together. Yet it was their callous disregard for Tony who’d been a pawn in their sicko game which had the director really seeing red whenever he thought about it. That pair were a threat to the people around them.

Delores obviously got impatient with his wool-gathering, because she asked him, “How did you manage to demote Special Agent Gibbs, and implement all the other measures, Sir?”

Smiling at her, he replied somewhat flippantly, “I took a leaf out of Gibbs’ rulebook and adopted his Rule 18.”

Delores looked puzzled. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with all of Gibbs rules, apart from never apologise and never be uncontactable,” she said with undisguised scorn. “So, what is number 18?”

Ignoring her question, he continued, “Plus, I receive a timely complaint from a civil rights lawyer and his wife, who just happens to be an investigative journalist. Can you believe it? They made a formal complaint about Gibbs. They claim that he used undue force when arresting Captain Mike Watson at the bank and that Gibbs threatened and intimidated him, even though he made no attempt to resist arrest.”

Delores looked sick at the news. He had to hand it to the assistant manager. She’d absolutely called it. So, were there other rules and regs which were being ignored by Gibbs or the MCRT?

While he was pondering this depressing scenario, Bromstead had apparently noticed he’d avoided answering her question about Rule 18. Seeing her intense scrutiny, he decided to just tell her what she wanted to know. 

Sighing, Tom said, “Okay, so Rule 18 is that it’s better to seek forgiveness than ask for permission,” Morrow told her solemnly, although there was a twinkle in his eyes. 

He could literally see the horror and panic descended on Delores as she realised that he hadn’t received permission from SecNav for the changes to the MCRT. And he saw the penny drop when she stared at the box of his possessions. Now his packing made perfect sense to her.

“They’ve fired you?” she asked, appalled at what she’d set in train, but Tom knew she couldn’t continue to turn a blind eye to the lawlessness of the MCRT.

He shrugged. “No, not yet but I’d say that will be the most likely outcome. But with Gibbs currently being investigated by IA for the excessive force allegation, plus there’s CCTV footage as well, it can’t exactly be swept under the rug. Would you like to see it?” he offered, knowing that HR would normally be informed before now, but he’d deliberately been keeping details close to the vest. 

After watching the footage in silence, Delores exclaimed at the end of the clip, “Wow. Special Agent Gibbs really does seem to think he’s bulletproof, doesn’t he? Getting physical with the suspect out in the open when the Captain was clearly already handcuffed and offering no resistance. He’s a time bomb waiting to go off.”

Tom looked saddened even as he agreed with her. “Out of control and expects to be shielded by people sworn to uphold the law,” he said sadly. “If this is how he acts when he’s in a public place and has two special agents there, you have to wonder how he would have acted if he’d been on his own.” He mused sadly.

There was silence as they pondered the imponderable. It was clear to Delores, who was a highly experienced HR manager, that with the combination of this excessive force charge plus the battery charges for head-slapping Agent DiNozzo, he was in a massive amount of trouble. Finally, it seemed like he was going to be held accountable for his actions.

Tom cleared his throat and said, “I also asked you up here because I wanted to thank you, Delores, for giving me a kick in the pants and reminding me about why I went into Law Enforcement in the first place.”

The administrator looked overwhelmingly guilty. “Why are you thanking me, Director? To all intents and purposes, you’ve lost your job, Sir.”

Tom smiled sadly, “That’s probably true. SecNav is not happy with me, but then Gibbs decided to use excessive force in front of two highly principled people who wouldn’t be silenced. Those two defenders of truth and justice forced NCIS to take action and I salute them. If I do lose my job as I expect, I can leave here with my integrity restored.

Again, they were both were silent as they contemplated the future before Morrow resumed speaking calmly. 

“You reminded me of the oath I took to uphold the laws of the United States, Delores. I was so frustrated when my attempts to do my job were thwarted, so I felt impotent. When you offered me your resignation in protest, I realised we each have the power to do what’s right.

‘Even when it seems to be just too hard, too scary, too little too late. We all have individual power IF we have the courage to stand up for what’s right, like you did, Delores.”

The emotionally introverted administrator felt herself going pink with embarrassment. But it seemed Director Morrow wasn’t done with her yet. 

“You know, somewhere along the way, the power which I believed I had as NCIS director, corrupted me. I’ve spent so many years out of the field that I was persuaded that I was indispensable to the future of the agency, just because I was top of the heap. So... I let things slide that I shouldn’t have because I was worried that if I rocked the boat, I would lose my job,” he said, feeling ashamed.

“I forgot that the most important people are not those who are management but the ones working at the coal face. You reminded me that my job was to protect them, not protect my job,” he told her gratefully.

“You reminded me that I could be better than I was. You were prepared to stand up for your principles. To stand up for our agents and NCIS. You stood up for the doctrine of justice for all, for victims of crime, and for the brave Marines, sailors and their families who we represent. Thank you for being my moral compass when I’d lost my way.

I want you to know that you are a hero and it’s my privilege to work with you,” Morrow told her solemnly.

“YOU, DELORES BROMSTEAD, ARE MY HERO.”

The End

End Notes:

From time to time when researching and writing these tags, there are episodes that have a lot of procedural errors. Sometimes I can combine all of them into the one tag but there are times when that isn’t possible, and I’ll admit that I find it frustrating. This is absolutely the case in See No Evil.

The big elephant in the room is that Gibbs sent the two green rookie agents, Todd and McGee to check out Captain Mike Watson’s home to confirm his wife and daughter had indeed been abducted. During this scene, I saw a number of disturbing lapses that were never addressed.

First, they made a visual determination from the car (seemingly via naked eye and a set of binoculars) that the house wasn’t under surveillance, which seemed to me to be a pretty questionable method? No really, how did they know that? It was extremely naïve of them and downright negligent. If they were wrong, e.g. if there had been more than one kidnapper or the property was being monitored electronically, their assumption could easily have gotten the hostages killed.

Problem 2 -They failed to treat evidence, (Sandy’s cardigan) in an appropriate manner. It should have been bagged and tagged so it could be checked for any trace evidence (hair, skin cells, or foreign particulates) transferred to the clothing from the perp/s. They also should have been wearing gloves while handling it.

Problem 3 -The whole breaking into the house by going through an open upstairs window farrago was ludicrous. In a ‘nice middle class’ neighbourhood like the Watson’s home, someone who saw them breaking in would have called the cops to report them and they’d have arrived on scene with lights and sirens blazing. (See my previous comments about potential consequences for hostages if the house was under surveillance.) 

Problem 4 - The perps could easily have been keeping an eye on the property, either physically or digitally to make sure that the cops/FBI hadn’t been contacted. (An example of this situation was the case in the 3.18-episode, Bait.) The rookies should have assumed that the property was being watched by the perps until such time as they had definitive proof that it wasn’t. Agents Todd and McGee could have gone in undercover (cleaners or tradespeople) or at least, gone in much less publicly.

Problem 5 - Even if they determined that there was no digital monitoring of the property, that wouldn’t have been definitive. The perps could have been monitoring the Watson’s house from a neighbouring property. They could have even been holding the hostages there for all they knew.

Problem 6 - Cate was so patronising about Tony’s means of gaining entry to a terrorists’ hideout during the episode 1.07 – Sub Rosa, but if ever there was a case where exigent circumstance applied, then surely it was in this situation and also in the Sub Rosa scene. Seasoned agents would have very discreetly broken a window at the back of the house to gain entry not climbed in a second-storey in the front of the house. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, the definition of exigent circumstances is circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry without a warrant or permission was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other individuals. They had probable cause to believe that Sandy and Julie Watson’s lives were in danger, needing to enter the property to verify that and collect evidence.

The fact is that having Todd and McGee entering the Watson’s home via the second storey by her standing on McGee’s shoulders, while he has his eyes shut in terror, so he won’t see her underwear. was simply playing for cheap laughs. It wasn’t smart writing for a police procedural and totally unnecessary. Not to mention that Todd forcing McGee to exit the same way they’d come in was dumb. Her method of entry wasn’t the result of differences between girls and boys, as Cate told Tim, it was the difference between experienced, competent agents and badly trained rookies, working without proper supervision.

Frankly, I found the comment to be extremely insulting. It was misogynistic to females and patronising to males. Way-to- go writers! All they needed to be inclusively offensive across the gamut was to throw in a comment about the transgender Commander Voss and some typical homophobic comments. 


	2. The Good Wives' Club: What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Tony lost conscious after being attacked by PO Barbara Swain when he came to her rescue, it ended up being a little more serious than a simple concussion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm back. Hopefully I'll be posting on this series more frequently now that I've cleared the decks of my WIP ~ Rising to the Bait which had become something of an albatross around my neck. I've also finished my entry in the 2020 Quantum Bang thank goodness and plan on focusing on tags for a while. This one was written some time ago but there were edits to make. Hope you enjoy it.

Series: There’s Always Tom Morrow

Title: What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander 

Episode: The Good Wives Club

Characters: Anthony DiNozzo, Ric Balboa, Tom Morrow, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Timothy McGee, Caitlin Todd, and Maria Gonzales (OC).

Tom Morrow had been home for almost two hours when his HR Manager Geneviève Taylor called to inform him that Special Agent DiNozzo had attended the ER 30 minutes ago. When he expressed surprise that she’d called him at home so expeditiously, she chuckled.

“When you asked to be informed if Agent DiNozzo had a work-related injury, I flagged his personnel file so if he was admitted to a hospital or attended an ER for a Workers Comp related injury, that I am notified immediately.”

“Well I must say, that’s remarkably efficient and conscientious of you, Ms Taylor. Do you have any details about the type of injury?” Tom queried. 

“Not a whole lot, Director. Just that it was some type of head injury.”

“Thank you again for your diligence, Ms Taylor.”

As he was about to terminate the call, Geneviève spoke up bluntly. “Special Agent DiNozzo has had far too many work-related injuries recently, Director.”

“Yes, I know,” the director sighed. Not counting this instance, in the last 12 months he’d been chucked out onto the beltway in a body bag, torn ligaments from being tossed out of a plane, drugged and kidnapped by a crazed serial killer who dragged his unconscious body down into the sewer. He'd ended up bruised, bloodied and needing strong prophylactic antibiotics. All three injuries were the result of some damned poor choices made by agent DiNozzo’s team leader, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. 

Tom wondered how he’d managed to collect a head injury today. More poor choices by his superior?

Discovering that his wife was planning on watching reality TV tonight, the NCIS director figured he wouldn’t be risking divorce or death if he snuck out to the ER to check up on his young agent. Frankly, watching America’s Next Top Model and a double episode of The Simple Life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie was like asking him to hold his hand over a Bunsen burner in Abigail Sciuto’s lab while she played her music at the same decibel level of a jumbo jet taking off. Even a visit to the hospital and drinking appalling coffee that was akin to oven cleaner was preferable to the popular reality shows which left him cold. 

By the time he arrived, DiNozzo had already been admitted to the hospital and allocated a room. Luckily, it was a relatively quiet night but then it was the middle of the working week; weekends were always crazy. Tom located the room quickly and hearing voices inside, stopped short, thinking that it was the doctor or nurses and didn’t want to invade his agent’s privacy. He smirked, knowing that Gibbs would barge in regardless. He cared little for anyone's privacy except his own.

Without intending to eavesdrop, Tom recognised the voice of Special Agent Balboa coming from inside the room and couldn’t help wondering what he was doing here instead of Tony’s supervisor Jethro Gibbs. Ric was a good man but DiNozzo wasn't his responsibility. Deciding to remain outside the door, which, fortunately, was ajar, Tom figured he’d learn more by listening than he would by barging in and debriefing the stubbornly stoic man who'd insist he was fine. Special Agent DiNozzo might carry on like a baby if he incurred a minor injury, but if it was something serious, the complaining swiftly dried up.

“Okay, all joking aside, what happened, Tony? How'd you end up with another head injury?" Balboa gently tried to push him into giving a sitrep.

He heard a long-suffering sigh before DiNozzo replied, “When I found Petty Officer Swain, I made sure she was okay and reassured her that Chaplain Brett Evans was dead and therefore no longer a threat to her. Then I made a call to Gibbs on my cell and I was in the middle of informing him that I’d found her.”

“So, what happened after that, Tony?”

“I don’t remember anything much after that, Ric.”

Tom scowled. He'd obviously been coldcocked which begged the question – what was his back up doing instead of watching his back? 

He could hear the confusion in Balboa’s voice too. “Okay, so what did your back up say happened next?”

“There wasn’t one. By the time the team arrived, I was out cold on the ground, and Swain had my gun and was threatening to kill herself. The prevailing wisdom is that the petty officer had developed Stockholm syndrome. As far as we can determine, when I told her the chaplain was dead, I immediately became the enemy and she struck me over the head with a lamp.”

“Why the hell didn’t you have backup Tony? What were you thinking?” Ric scolded him firmly.

“Well Gibbs sent McGee, Cate and me off to search for Swain in one the ammo bunkers on the base and he partnered up with Special Agent Melankovic to search another one. As the senior agent, I couldn’t let rooks like Todd or McGee go off on their own - not without back up and time was precious since we suspected he might have switched off ventilation to the victim. Three people searching together was overkill, especially since McGee and I both had sets bolt cutters, so I sent them off together to watch each other's backs. It made sense to split up so we could double the amount of ground we could cover in the limited time we had left.” 

He paused at that point and Tom decided that Balboa must have given him the evil eye, since he responded, “If someone is going to get hurt, better it be me as I’m the senior field agent. At least for now.”

Morrow noted that DiNozzo sounded defeated and flat – perhaps his head was giving him pain, it must be aching if he lost consciousness. It seemed he’d acquired yet another damned concussion. Tom wondered why he hadn’t been checked out at a hospital in Jacksonville and made a mental note to check into it with Human Resources.

“That’s bullshit, DiNozzo.” Ric protested. “There was no good reason for it to happen to any of you. Why didn’t Gibbs get extra backup? You can’t tell me that there wasn’t another agent he could have borrowed or that anywhere on Jacksonville Naval Air Station, he couldn’t find ONE sailor or Marine to help in the search. If you do, I’ll call you a liar or a fool and you ain't no fool.”

“Look, it’s not Gibbs fault…” Tony started diffidently before Balboa interrupted him furiously.

“The hell it isn't! Gibbs is the team lead, the buck for the team’s safety stops with him. Who the devil else should I blame, Tony. You? The victim? Just wait till I see him…”

“No don’t…please Ric. I was being a jackass, acting like a jerk. I’m sure it was punishment and I deserved it. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.” Tony pleaded with Balboa who backed off verbally, although Tom knew if Ric didn’t tackle Gibbs about Tony’s injury, then he sure as hell would. 

“Come on Tony, I know you. You muck about at times. Yeah, you tease and play practical jokes in the bullpen but you don’t screw around out in the field. Even if you did, which I don’t believe for a second, that is no excuse. You didn’t deserve to be left on your own or collect a concussion. No one does – you don’t leave someone without backup – what if she’d shot you when you were down?” 

“If you committed any terrible offence, Gibbs would have ripped you a new one or he'd put you on report. What was it you were supposed to have done that was so heinous, anyway?

“Told you…I mucked around in the office, reading The Good Housewives’ Guide while the probie and Agent Melankovic went through transfers looking for males who were left-handed that had been in Norfolk. I told McGee it was research-that it went to the suspect’s state of mind when really, I was just pissed off, so I was acting like a complete jerk because… ya know that’s what they expect.” He paused and Tom standing outside could hear the self-recrimination practically dripping off of him in his tone and word choice. 

“And when we checked out Chaplain Evans place for clues,” he continued cynically, “I watched his Ozzie and Harriet DVDs instead of helping them search the place. I wasn't acting professionally, Balboa. Plus, I did everything possible to get under Melankovic’s skin. Purring at her and acting lecherous and in the last year I’ve had plenty of opportunities to perfect that schtick!”

He was silent and when he spoke again, he sounded mocking. “I let Agent Melankovic get to me. She reminded me of Cate with her smug superiority, thinking she was better and smarter than me and not even trying to hide her opinion, so I wanted to piss her off.”

Balboa snorted at that admission and Morrow smiled grimly. While Tony was skilled at wrangling the savage beast aka Agent Gibbs, he was also extremely accomplished at pissing people off when he wanted to. The director had some idea of how obnoxiously he'd acted.

Tony told Balboa, “I do have to be fair though and say that she didn’t make below-the-belt remarks, unlike our team profiler. It was more her attitude of extreme disgust when she was talking to me that got to me.” He admitted, sounding dismayed. 

“Plus, I ate Melankovic’s mixed nuts to piss her off and when she said it was a present for her sister, so I made a dumb remark about them being fattening and she told me her sister was anorexic. Made me feel horrible for being such a jerk to her.” Tony told Balboa. 

“Okay, so what did Cate say 'this time' that got you so upset with her?”

“Oh, I know I should be used to her by now but somehow she always seems to catch me with my guard down,” he deflected. “Gotta stop being so weak and needy.”

“What did she say to you, Dino?” 

“She was profiling the killer. You know…the usual, broken family, probable molestation. Then McGee observed that he was trying to create the perfect relationship and she agreed. Said it was all about control for him.

“Then I opened my dumb mouth to join in on the discussion on the case. I observed that PO Figgus didn’t live up to his expectations. It was obvious that she couldn’t have since he abandoned her there to die in the cruellest way imaginable,” he shuddered, sounding appalled before falling silent as they all contemplated what the petty officer must have experienced before her death. 

Tom suspected that the case brought back images of a serial killer, a Filipino barmaid last year who’d starved her victims to death to avenge her friends. She'd also abducted Tony and incarcerated him with two of the victims when he got too close. He made a mental note to speak to the NCIS psychologist about the similarities before he was cleared to return to duty. 

Eventually, Ric prompted him to continue after it was clear Tony was going to ignore the question, “So?”

“So, then she lay into me! Said, _why was I sure you’d understand that part about her not living up to expectations,_ _DiNozzo_?”

Tom heard a swift exhalation before Balboa responded fiercely, “Whoa that’s totally out of line, man, not to mention insubordinate of her. Don’t let her get to you.”

“Not sure if she was talking about me with women or she was talking about my failure to meet Gibbs expectations,” he admitted dispiritedly, and Tom raised his eyebrows at that confession. _What the hell was going on?_

“What were you so pissed off about, Tony?” Ric inveigled gently, getting back on track. “C’mon, you know that you’ll feel better if you get it off your chest, kid.” 

Tom was surprised that Tony was being so forthcoming about his feelings. He normally had that emotional mask of his very firmly in place. Perhaps the concussion had scrambled his usual defences.

He heard Tony sigh and he sounded so miserable. 

“It’s dumb, Ric.”

“It’s not dumb if it upset you. Just talk about it…it always helps to talk -don’t bottle things up.”

Tom heard a huffing sound that he took to be submission. “Fine, whatever. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though. It is completely juvenile and dumb!”

Balboa said, “Gimme.”

“When we were out at Norfolk to investigate PO Figgus’ mummified remains, Gibbs introduced Cate, McGee and then me last of all to Lieutenant Commander Willis, who oversaw base security. Cate reckoned the order of Gibbs’ introduction of his team didn't have anything to do with rank or seniority. She claimed that it was based on the level of intelligence and general competence.”

Tom cursed mentally at his team leader for his propensity for mind-fucks and the profiler who had tickets on herself, unjustifiably in his opinion. Morrow was seriously regretting letting her join the MCRT – had since almost the first case. After her egregious behaviour that saw her resign from the Secret Service to pre-empt her firing as the POTUS’ protection detail, he’d expected her to be a little more humble and thankful that they’d thrown her a lifeline. Instead, she had taken it as her due, was arrogant and thought she knew better than agents who’d worked as investigators for years. They could teach her a lot if only she’d get her head out of her ass and listen to them.

“And I guess she’s right about it because even though I was the one who found the trap door in the base housing leading to the bunker where the body was, Gibbs took Cate and McGee down to the crime scene and told me to wait for Ducky. He treated me like the probie instead of his senior field agent.”

_And the most experienced investigator on the team,_ Tom finished silently.

Balboa was trying his best to put a good spin on it. “Maybe with the introduction with Willis, it was simply a mistake. Like he introduced you in order of how you were standing, Tony. Don’t read too much…”

“Rocky,” DiNozzo interrupted him, “Don’t you think I thought about that already? Cate was standing on the right of me, I was in the middle and McGee was on my left. So, it wasn’t about how we were standing. It was meant to be an insult. To tell me I’m the least valuable person on the team.”

Morrow scowled and a nurse passing by, scurried past, giving him a weird look. He couldn’t help feeling furious though. To a civilian, both incidents (the introductions and making his SFA wait for the ME) might seem insignificant but not to law enforcement professions who operated on a quasi-military structure. No to mention that he’d been addressing someone from the military, where rank and chain of command was the basis of their ability to function effectively. 

In Morrow opinion, like Tony, he didn't see it as an insignificant slip-up, especially when both instances occurred within mere minutes of each other. And Gibbs, there’s-no-such-thing-as-a-former-Marine, never did anything without having an ulterior motive. That said, Tom didn’t understand - why the putdown?

It wasn’t punishment since DiNozzo hadn’t been in his bad books before that. Was it just another one of his petty and vindictive mind-fucks, particularly since it was the first official case for the MCRT since Timothy McGee had joined the team? Tom wouldn’t put it past him!

“C’mon Dino, its McGee’s first case as a probie. You can’t honestly believe Gibbs thinks he’s more competent than you?”

“Not about my belief, Ric. I know that he does. Gibbs offered McGee my spot on the team when I was drugged and left in the sewer that time when the Marines were turning up dead. Plus, we all know he’s smarter than me,” he argued with the senior supervisory agent stubbornly.

“Maybe about computers and technology but you’ve got a masters degree too. All supervisors do and yours is in a vocationally relevant area, Dino. Criminology is impressive – especially since you studied part-time while you were on the job in Baltimore and DC.” Ric reminded him.

“Yeah, maybe Ric, but it wasn’t at some fancy college. Georgetown isn’t Johns Hopkins or MIT. Gibbs was going around bragging about McGee’s degrees on the first case we worked at Norfolk, long before he even join the team. I bet you any money the Boss hasn’t a clue where I did mine.” 

Tom huffed. He didn’t like the dejected tone in DiNozzo’s voice. He was going to do something to fix this mess and he guaranteed that Gibbs was not gonna like it, either. It was no way to run a team, damn it! 

He grinned evilly. Oh, he already had some creative ideas about the re-education of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Meanwhile, it seemed Agent DiNozzo, wasn’t done sharing yet. 

“So, after that, I guess I was feeling quite touchy when Gibbs sent both of us off together to interview the victim’s family, and I was acting like a jerk about the radio. But when McGee went and blurted that out, I kinda freaked out and it dialled my obnoxious DiNozzo button about ten miles to the north of the centre.”

He chuckled mournfully, “You know that I can be incredibly insufferable when I want to piss people off,” he admitted bluntly. “I guess it also didn’t help my paranoia any when Special Agent Melankovic was all over the green little probie like a rash and treating me like I had leprosy.”

“Whoa there. Back it up a little. What did McGee blurt out that threw you so bad?”

Tom mentally congratulated his senior supervisory agent for asking the crucial question. He’d zeroed in on that admission, too.

“Oh...well, he said that he wasn’t after my job; that I was Gibbs right-hand man. When I asked him if Gibbs told him that, he said no but the boss said good things about me. So, stupid idiot that I am! I asked him to repeat the good things the boss had said about me and then he ummed and aahed then finally volunteered that Gibbs said that at least my case report was on time for once.”

Balboa must have looked bemused because Tony slipped into lecture mode and began explaining. 

“Okay, I admit that it doesn’t sound that bad on the surface, pretty par for the course where Gibbs is concerned to damn me with faint praise. But you see Roc, it was Tim's initial statement that kicked me in the gut. One of the things I studied was Content Analysis and Statement Analysis. We used it a lot in Philly and Baltimore when I was a cop. Sort of a sub-specialty of profiling. You know how when someone’s lying, they’ll often look down and to the left, while if they are recalling a real memory they look to the right?” 

There was a pause that Morrow assumed was due to Balboa nodding, although of course, hovering outside he couldn't see it.

“Well, it’s a bit like that, except that the analysis focuses on verbal tells instead of non-verbal ones.”

“How so, Dino?” Ric asked him curiously.

“Well, intuitively, we do basic content analysis all the time when we question suspects. Statement qualifiers can be a tell that someone is being deceptive. For instance, they’ll often qualify the statement by saying ‘as far as I recall,’ which is a classic in people who are trying to lie. And then there’s my favourite example, ‘please, you have to believe me.’ Anyone who demands you have to believe them is going to set off alarm bells with an investigator if they’re worth their salt and make you distrust them.

“Then there’s swapping tense or changing pronouns during the account. For example, if they’re not supposed to know that the murder victim is dead, but they keep slipping and using past tense talking about the dead person – it can indicate they know the victim is dead. And of course, as any cop or fed already know, someone who has a clear conscience doesn’t just blurt out that they didn’t kill their wife without being accused of it first. If they do, then we get interested in them real fast.”

Balboa agreed that it was most definitely a red flag for him, then he said, “Okay, so you felt that when McGee said he wasn’t after your job he was deceptive.”

“Well, yeah, because I didn’t accuse him of stealing it - he volunteered that statement. So if he wasn’t thinking about it, why did he say it? Maybe he wasn’t trying to convince me, perhaps he was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t after it, which means he’s in denial about it. Not sure which though. Either way, he has designs on my job.” 

There was a brief pause, Morrow thought he was trying to figure out how to explain or maybe he was in pain.

“One of the principles of statement analysis or SCAN, as it’s sometimes called, is that the more language someone uses to explain, the greater the chances that a person who is trying to hide something and that they’ll trip themselves up. Keep them talking and they will trip themselves up. They’ll reveal that they are lying or sometimes, even what they are hiding.

“And that’s why I called him out on the assertion that I was Gibbs right-hand man. When I made him defend his statement, McGee couldn’t do so, indicating that he was probably lying, and he doesn’t think I’m important to the team at all or Gibbs didn't say it at all.”

Tom scowled, or another explanation might be that Gibbs had been making disparaging remarks about him to McGee, as he did when Agent Todd joined the team and he told her to ignore DiNozzo’s orders. If either of them had experience as field agents or investigators or Tony wasn’t the senior filed agent and a highly-skilled investigator, it MIGHT be understandable for him to say that. Not okay, but it was Gibbs yet in this case, it was just plain idiocy. 

“Maybe when you’re feeling better, we can get together and you could give me more information on statement content, Dino. I can see how it could be useful during interviews or reviewing written statements. But meanwhile, tell me who it was it that identified Chaplain Evans as the suspect?”

“Um, I did, purely by chance when I went to make photocopies of the transfer files from Norfolk files after Gibbs expressly ordered me to when I was going to get McGee to do it.”

Tom nodded, it was a probie job, along with gassing the truck, dumpster diving, carrying the gear and a myriad of other duties that Todd and McGee should be performing. Gibbs thought it was amusing to make his senior agent do them, even though they had junior agents who should be doing the grunt work. More mind games, god damn him! 

“Uh-huh. So, who figured out where Swain was being held, Dino?”

Tony chuckled cynically. “Do you need to ask? Abby and the gunny. Abbs blew up the ‘wedding photos’ and Gibbs recognised it was an ammo bunker.”

“Where’d you find the photos?” Balboa asked curiously.

“Oh, we found them at the chaplain’s place. Would you believe that the killer liked to hide stuff inside his record player? I did it too when I was a kid.”

“So, let’s see if I got this straight, you found the entrance to the tunnel in Norfolk?”

“Yeah.”

“Despite deliberately being a dick, you narrowed down the list of suspects to Chaplain Evans and it was you who found the photos that were pivotal in locating the victim, alive and well. Plus, you also found Petty Officer Swain. I’d say that that was a pretty damned impressive effort DiNozzo and even if they don’t say it out loud, Todd and McGee would be impressed too.”

“Ha, I doubt that, Ric. McGenius told me I was a lot like the serial killer. He doesn’t respect me or my position. Neither does Cate.” Tony was quiet for a bit before he asked, sounding flat, “Hey Ric…I’m tired, do you mind if I take a nap now?”

“Knock yourself out, Dino. Oh oops! Poor choice of words. Sorry.” 

Morrow rolled his eyes at Balboa gaffe, but it might be Balboa's attempt at injecting some levity into the situation. As he pondered this possibility Balboa stuck his head out the door and cocked an eyebrow at the director.

“You planning on staying out there all night?” He queried.

“You knew I was out here?” Tom asked.

“Yep, but Tony didn’t. The pain meds they gave him to help with the pain left him vulnerable to suggestion. A suggestion that he talk about what had him so uptight, which you heard?”

Yes…thanks, Balboa. Good job! Now, how about you and I go and get some of that oven cleaner hospital brew which is trying to impersonate real coffee and you tell me what you’re doing here instead of Agent Gibbs and what the doctors said about DiNozzo’s head injury. 

A short while later, Tom sat in the hospital canteen with his agent sipping on bad coffee and nibbling on a slightly stale cheese Danish, staring at the institutional beige coloured walls, and scuffed green linoleum flooring. Looking closely at Balboa who looked tired and more than a little out of sorts, he cocked an eyebrow at the man.

“So, what are you doing here instead of DiNozzo’s supervisor?”

Ric shrugged his shoulders. “I guess you could say the mafia gave me the heads up.” When he saw Morrow’s alarm he chuckled. “Keep your hair on, um oops, Director. Keep digging holes for my mouth to fall into tonight.”

Director Morrow raised his eyebrows and gestured to Balboa to get on with it.

“So, anyway, I was talking about the Blue Mafia. Once a cop and all that jazz. When Tony lost consciousness at his apartment his neighbours called the paramedics, who notified the cops when they saw who it was. And a cop called me since Tony and I play a pick-up game of ball with some of the Metro cop’s coupla times a month, that’s if we’re not working on a case. Good stress relief and Tony’s a good guy to hang around with. Helps to improve relations with the LEOs too, after Gibbs pisses them off.” He smirked and Morrow did a mental eye roll.

Tom wriggled his butt around, trying to get comfortable in the worlds’ most uncomfortable seats. “Been meaning to say that I appreciate you taking over from Chris and keeping an eye on DiNozzo.”

Balboa looked self-conscious. “I think he must have had some sort of premonition, Sir. Asked me to watch the kid if anything ever happened to him. He was fond of Tony. Said he wasn’t nearly as tough as he pretended to be. Pacci was a damned fine man, you know.”

Both men were silent as they remembered the fallen agent.

“And Chris was right, DiNozzo is getting his self-confidence shot to shit, Director. Funny thing is, I’m beginning to feel pretty-damned protective of him, too. Which is surprising, especially since he’s a seasoned cop and agent. Never expected that.”

“Professionally he’s tough, Ric but not tough when it comes to all the interpersonal stuff. Do you know what happened tonight?” Tom demanded.

Ric looked askance at him, "How do you mean, Director?"

“Why wasn’t someone watching him if he lost consciousness? Surely he should have been on a concussion watch.” Tom growled, still smarting because this head injury occurred all due to his agent not having someone watch his back in the field, again. Gibbs had a helluva lot to answer for.

“Cops said his elderly neighbour knocked when he got home and asked him if he could change a light bulb for her. According to his neighbours, he’s done it before…anyway, he blacked out and fell off the stepladder, so she called 911. As to injuries, according to the doc, they want to do a CT scan in the morning, and they’ll keep him under observation for tonight. He sprained his wrist and bruised some ribs in the fall but it could have been worse, Sir,” Ric told the director since Tony had been injured on the job, the director was within his rights to know the extent of his injuries. 

“Okay…good. But why isn’t Gibbs here? Isn’t he Tony’s medical proxy?”

“Ah well, no, not anymore. The hospital said they tried to contact his current one but didn’t have any luck.”

“Who is his proxy?” Tom asked curiously. “And do you know when he removed Gibbs?”

“It was last May, I think. Around the time he was drugged by the serial killer and locked up in the sewer. He was acting off for a long time after that damned case.”

Yeah that was when Gibbs told him he was irreplaceable and in the next breath told McGee he was sorry he couldn’t have Tony’s job since he wasn’t dead, Tom recalled. Sometimes the team lead of the MCRT could be a genuine prick, Tom concluded disgustedly.

"And his proxy is someone called Alphonso D’Abruzzo, but they say they can’t contact him. Maybe he’s an uncle or a cousin? I’ll run a check on him.”

Morrow nodded. He was pretty sure that Tony didn’t have any relatives by that name. He had to do something about this situation. Gibbs was supposed to be watching Tony’s six, but he was doing a crappy job of it. What he needed was a boot up his butt. 

Just because the SFA was an experienced field agent, didn’t mean that he didn’t need someone watching his back. When he was undercover that was often inevitable, but it was completely unnecessary when he was working on the MCRT, especially now they had four members. 

He also needed to do something about building up DiNozzo's confidence that had been beaten down ever since the major case response team went from him and Gibbs as partners to a trio and now a quartet. Suddenly, the order of the day was treating him as either the class clown or whipping boy – take your pick depending upon which day of the week it was or Gibbs’ mood. He had a couple of ideas about directions he could go but he’d sleep on them overnight. 

In the meantime, Gibbs had been negligent when he didn’t insist on his agent being checked out by a doctor, but knowing Jethro, he'd have been in a tearing hurry to get back to DC. Not that it was an excuse, but that also didn’t relieve the two other agents of their obligation to ensure he received medical assistance. Backing up a teammate didn’t just extend to being out in the field, either. Cate had enough experience in the Secret Service to know that damn it, even if McGee didn’t. None of the team was watching out for Tony's welfare at all.

The bottom line was that anytime someone lost consciousness, for any reason, especially a head injury, they should get checked out at a hospital where there's access to the CT scans, x-rays, and other tests that should be done on someone who possibly has a concussion. While he just knew that Gibbs would try to shift the blame onto DiNozzo for not getting checked out, saying the agent insisting he was fine, that was bullshit. It should never be left to the injured person to get medical care after a head injury because the injured person's judgment can be impaired. In the end, it was Gibbs' responsibility to make sure Tony got medical assessment before they got on the military transport and he didn’t.

The fact was that it wasn’t always safe to travel with a concussion. Also, Tom knew that manifestations from the head injury could just as easily presented themselves during the flight, and there wouldn't have been immediate access to medical care. If Tony had taken a turn for the worse once they’d taken off, the plane would have had to divert and make an emergency landing. That would have taken too much time and greatly delayed Tony getting urgent medical treatment. 

Tom hoped that Tony was going to be okay. Gibbs broke several of his own damned rules today. So, it was high time it was pointed out to him. Bluntly, since he didn't do subtle!

It was clear to Tom that Gibbs also needed to do a refresher first aid course. He grinned evilly. Perhaps he’d make him attend the next training course run for baby SEAL medics, as a patient, when Agent DiNozzo was fit for duty and fill in as team leader. 

~o0o~

Gibbs looked at the empty desk catty-corner to him in the bullpen with ill-disguised impatience. It was ten long days since they’d wrapped up the case of the sicko serial killing chaplain who'd chained up his victims in wedding gowns and finally, left them all to die. They’d managed to save the last victim, but she was a wingnut, attacking DiNozzo when he was calling to report that he’d found her and give Gibbs their location. He’d lost consciousness at the scene but in his typical fashion, had insisted he was fine, and he’d had plenty of concussions, after all. Gibbs was feeling pissed off that he’d been attacked and he'd have to fill out a form on the incident to keep those damned harpies on HR off his back, so he’d been happy to accept DiNozzo's word that he didn't need to see a doctor and move on. 

The annoying truth was that it would never have happened if he’d had back up, as Director Morrow had pointed out so damned eloquently even while he was royally tearing him a new one for not giving him back-up. Tom had emphasised that Gibbs knew full well that McGee, Tony, and himself had been given bolt cutters. He’d sent his three agents off to check out a different ammo bunker to himself and agent Melankovic. Given the dire nature of the search, plus the fact that Tony would want to maximise their chances of finding the PO in time to save her life and there was no way he would ever let the two inexperienced agents go off on their own, it was inevitable that he’d opt to be the one without backup. It was a no brainer or it should have been to a former NCO Marine!

Tom knew that and so did Gibbs, yet he still saw fit not to give him back up from all the military personnel available on the base. Morrow pointed out that it was not the first time Jethro failed to have his senior field agent's six and as a result, he’d gotten hurt on those occasions too. Told him that if the shoe were on the other foot, DiNozzo wouldn’t have let him go into an unknown place where there could be unfriendlies, without someone watching his six. Tom wanted him to think about why he was so damned cavalier when it came to Tony’s safety and stop doing it.

Director Morrow had put an official caution in his file but that didn’t faze Gibbs. He knew it was a fair cop and besides, it wasn’t the first black mark and it probably wouldn’t be the last either. There was no excuse for leaving an agent without back up and he couldn’t explain why he did it to DiNozzo. Nor why he was so casual with his welfare when he got pissed at other agents if their underlings ever got hurt on their watch. He knew he should have made sure Tony got checked out and he also knew he should have been on concussion watch because it was far from his first rodeo. Again, he could offer no reason why he hadn’t acted appropriately.

Morrow pointed out quite harshly but fairly that it was SOP that a loss of consciousness for more than two minutes duration required an employee to visit the ER to be checked by a doctor. As Tony was knocked out and didn't wake up until after the team had managed to talk Swain down, way more than 2 minutes had elapsed. At least 5-10 minutes had passed as the team had to make their way to his location and then they had to deal with Swain.

Furthermore, since Tony had lost consciousness for longer than 2 minutes, he shouldn't have been moved or allowed to move, and an ambulance should have been called to take him to the ER. As Morrow took great pains to explain, anyone who had first aid training would know that with any head injury, there was also the risk of a neck or spinal cord injury. So, it was best to be safe and not move the patient and let EMTs immobilize the patient and take them to the hospital by ambulance. A person who wasn't trained in judging head injuries should not be trying to determine the severity of a concussion him or herself. It should always be left to trained medical personnel to make that evaluation.

Then to compound his idiocy, according to Morrow, DiNozzo had flown back to DC without medical clearance. Then he’d permitted DiNozzo to drive himself home when they got back to DC which he quite clearly shouldn't have done. Tony could potentially have lost consciousness and injured or killed not only himself but other people on the road. 

As a result of him failing to follow basic first aid training, not to mention that it was also NCIS health and safety regulations for field agents, DiNozzo had lost consciousness later that night and ended up with further injuries. He’d been rushed to the hospital, but Gibbs wasn’t informed about until he came to work the next morning and discovered DiNozzo had removed Jethro as his medical proxy.

Why had he done that? Didn’t he trust him anymore and what had prompted the change? It had been Ric Balboa who’d been with his agent, not Gibbs and that stung.

In the end, Tony ended up spent a couple of days in the hospital on drugs to reduce his brain swelling, which they felt the flight home from Jacksonville had worsened. His agent was still out on sick leave and Gibbs couldn’t wait for DiNozzo to return to work today. It had been a long ten days without the mercurial agent to buffer his bad moods with the rookies.

Frankly, Jethro was fed up with having to explain every little thing to Cate and McGee. They didn’t anticipate, just waited for him to tell them what he wanted. They didn’t make intuitive leaps or pluck leads out of nowhere when the search ran dry, unlike DiNozzo. Cate was bossy, ordering the probie around and McGee didn’t like it at all. He kept telling her he’d been first in his class at FLETC and he knew how to conduct a search better than she did.

Jethro was so looking forward to Tony coming back so he didn’t need to be bothered by all their crap. He prefered to leave the day to day training of the junior agents up to DiNozzo because he had a lot more patience. So, it was a bitter blow to the team leader to be called into the director’s office and informed that Tony was on an extended leave from the team. It seemed that he was undertaking some special missions for Morrow, but the director refused to tell him what they were.

Jethro had protested bitterly that Tony belonged to him, he’d found and recruited him, and Gibbs needed him on the MCRT. Tom told him, very politely but firmly, that he had a new agent in Timothy McGee, so there were three of them to carry the load. Then he simply reiterating that Tony was needed elsewhere. Morrow also rightly pointed out that DiNozzo and himself had coped as a two-agent team for more than a year. So Morrow told Gibbs that he was confident Gibbs would manage with McGee and Todd to back him up. 

Being Gibbs, he wouldn’t accept that brushoff by the director since he was used to getting his way in all things related to his team. He’d demanded to know what was so damned important that Tom had to steal DiNozzo away without consulting him first. To which he’d been told, very decisively this time, that it was need-to-know, and Gibbs didn’t! When he all but shouted at Director Morrow that he did need to know, because if his agent was doing undercover work then Gibbs needed to know that someone had his six, Tom had smiled at him patronisingly. The director informed him that unlike Gibbs had done, he was watching Tony’s six and that was all Jethro was entitled to know. No amount of his tantrums had persuaded the director to reverse his opinion – he was an impenetrable brick wall.

That naturally didn’t improve Jethro's temper at all, which wasn't exactly good to start with and after ten days, Cate and McGee were looking pretty ragged around the edges, dealing with him without the benefit of DiNozzo’s buffering. And it only got worse. Much, much worse!

The first week after Tony failed to return from sick leave as expected, they muddled along without him, like they had when he was out on sick leave, but it was taking its toll on all three of them. They’d caught a basic garden variety domestic homicide (the wife did it) and then a suicide. Gibbs felt Tony’s absence as he’d struggled with a probie McGee and a near probie Todd. 

Funny when Tony was around, he hadn’t noticed just how green Cate still was. Sure, she’d picked up the basics of crime scene investigation, but he was realising that she was incredibly inflexible, unable to think outside the box. DiNozzo had been banging on about how when she connected emotionally with someone, she lost all perspective in trying to prove them innocent but until now he hadn't realised how much of an issue it was. She’d even steered him on the wrong track several times, much to his amusement…NOT!

As payback, he made her do all the messy, dirty probie jobs like gassing up the truck, dumpster diving. At one crime scene, he ordered her to crawl around on her hands and knees searching for ballistic evidence out the back of a notorious nightclub where people went to vomit or take a piss when the bathrooms were all full. She’d whined and complained that she wasn’t the probie and shouldn’t have to do all the shitty jobs, so he’d reminded her that when she was the probie, she’d complained so much that he’d made DiNozzo do them. She’d still bitched and moaned about it, but usually behind his back to McGee but she did it. 

By the second week, post-DiNozzo’s sick leave coming to an end, when Tom informed him that Tony was still on special assignment, Gibs threw a major tantrum. It was spectacular consisting of stomping, growling and yelling but the director was implacable. Tony would not be returning this week – perhaps next week. He just wasn’t sure yet. 

It was damned frustrating because the director had never interfered with his team like this in the past. He increasingly took out his anger and frustration on his team, driving them harder and longer but no matter how hard he pushed them, they were continually disappointing him.

Gibbs tantrums took a turn for the worse when the MCRT caught a particularly nasty case of a Navy Lieutenant Commander’s family, who were all found deceased. His wife and three children, aged fifteen, twelve and seven died from gunshot wounds to the head and the Lt Commander John Trinder had disappeared. And as if that weren’t enough to make Gibbs crazy, there was a second crime scene. Mrs Trinder's parents had also been shot in their home in Virginia. Jethro had gone stomping in to see the director, demanding that he needed DiNozzo back and he needed him NOW as he had two different crime scenes to process and a missing sailor to locate.

Tom had sized him up and observed that he’d handled big and complex cases in the past when it had only been himself and Tony. The director told Gibbs said that he had Cate and McGee, so Morrow was confident that the three agents would do just fine. After all, they were the MCRT - the premier investigative team in the DC office.

Gibbs had been furious that Morrow didn't get it, shouting that McGee was still green as grass after only a couple of cases on the team and Cate had only a year on the job, so she still had a helluva lot of learning to do. He yelled that she’d get too emotionally involved in this one, even if she had the field experience. No, he insisted that he needed a highly trained agent to run the second crime scene investigation. He needed Tony, plus apart from all the evidence that needed collecting and processing, they also had to find the husband, who was a probable suspect in five homicides. Bottom line, he’d asserted angrily, it was far too complex a case to run the investigation without DiNozzo. 

Director Morrow stared at him intently for several moments before he nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Gibbs. Your team can’t run this case without DiNozzo.”

He pressed his intercom and asked Cynthia to get Agent Balboa. After the initial feeling of triumph when he thought he’d won when Morrow had agreed with him, Jethro felt confused. What did Ric have to do with Tony being on a special assignment?

A couple of minutes later, Balboa was standing in Tom’s office looking curious, too.

“Agent Balboa, we have a complex case that's looking like it might be a murder-suicide, we have a primary crime scene with the wife and three kids and a secondary one with the grandparent, also shot and killed. Lt Commander Trinder’s whereabouts aren't known at this stage but he is either a victim or a suspect. I want you to run the primary crime scene since his agents are both inexperienced and Agent Todd will get too emotionally involved with the victims and we need clear heads on this one. Gibbs will run the secondary site with the grandparents. This is a joint investigation but since your team is at full strength you'll be point for the case. Any questions?”

Ric pulled a face, no doubt not looking forward to having to work with Gibbs. “No Sir. I’ll… go brief the team.” He nodded to Gibbs and shot out of the room like a scalded cat.

Gibbs slammed his hand down on the desk. “I’m more qualified to run the investigation that Balboa, Dir-ect-tor.”

“That’s true, Jethro but as you so coherently pointed out just now, the rest of your team has less than 13 months field experience between them, with DiNozzo away on assignment. The team is only as good as the sum of its parts and yours lacks the expertise and experience to run such a complex case such as this one. Thank you for drawing it to my attention, " Morrow said firmly and Gibbs found he couldn't disagree with his reasoning. He didn't like it though.

Morrow nodded his dismissal. "Good luck on this one Agent Gibbs – it looks like it's a nasty one.”

So, extremely pissed off, he’d stomped downstairs and driven to Virginia in a foul mood, making certain the team was as green with the speed at which he’d driven as they were still green as field agents. The irony of getting there so quickly was that there was only so much he could do until Ducky arrived, but he’d gone to the primary crime scene first. The MCRT had to sit around and wait. 

If DiNozzo wasn’t off running stupid damned errands for Tom Morrow, he’d have sent him to Virginia with a couple of TADs and he’d have been at the primary scene instead of Balboa’s team. He hated sharing investigations with other teams, even from NCIS, but even worse, he hated not being the lead agent. After all, he was the senior supervisory agent of the MCRT. It should be his investigation.

Consequently, it had been a trying week and when the case was finally closed, Balboa’s team had located Lt Commander Trinder’s body in his car in the Shenandoah State Park with a garden hose attached to the exhaust pipe and him dead inside. Cate had insisted that there must be foul play, as she’s spoken to his parish priest who had known him for years. She insisted that suicide was a mortal sin and as he was a good Roman Catholic, he’d never have killed himself. At which point in the discussion, Maria Gonzales, Balboa’s SFA and a Roman Catholic like Todd, had dug up the statistics for suicides in people who were practising RC, shocking the crap out of the closed-minded profiler and making her look rather foolish.

It had been a difficult case emotionally for all of them – him because it awoke memories of Shannon and Kelly that he tried to keep buried. For Cate, because she didn’t seem to retain a distance from victims or sometimes even the perps (Ari and his kind eyes) and when Ducky ruled Trinder’s death a suicide she’d taken it particularly badly. Maybe she needed to attend mandatory counselling to try to resolve her personal biases about suicide and people who were Catholics.

McGee hadn’t been a whole lot better; he still got queasy at crime scenes and hadn’t yet managed to create the professional distance you needed to be able to deal with horrific and gruesome scenes and not miss evidence. This one saw him puking his guts up when he sent him in to take photos of the victims and the bedrooms where the crime had taken place. He'd ended up contaminating the scene. leaving Gibbs to tear his hair out and tear the probationary agent a new one, leaving him a stammering nervous wreck. 

Dealing with such a heinous case, Gibbs kept looking to Tony to play a joke or lighten the atmosphere with a rambling monologue about a movie, but the bullpen was deathly silent. Well, apart from the occasional sharp words or the petty arguments from his two probie agents as the tension continued to build up. Come Friday afternoon after working all day on cold cases, he was glad to see the back of them both. With no cases pending and the MCRT not rostered on over the weekend, Gibbs was looking forward to a weekend working on his boat and come, Monday, the return of DiNozzo.

Except that Monday, 0800 saw him back in Morrow’s office to hear the crappy news that unfortunately, something had come up, again. Although Tom didn’t seem all that cut up about it, even if he said he was sorry. But the point was that the director told him DiNozzo would be gone for another week, and no, Gibbs didn’t need to know what was so important that HIS team was having to cope with a man down.

“You’re the one that kept on at me to build a four-man team, Director,” Gibbs fired back.

Tom considered his argument, and said, “ Good point, Gibbs. Would you like for me to organise a TAD for you?” 

Gibbs grumbled a bit but said he wanted Cassie Yates, who used to work on Chris Pacci’s team back in the day and Morrow had rejected that idea. I’m sorry, Gibbs, but she’s undercover on a joint drug-op with the DEA. However, there’s a couple of probationary agents in the pool you could pick from.”

Jethro hastily declined the offer – he was already up to his neck in rookies. He didn’t need another.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I need an experienced TAD to do the heavy lifting. I don’t need another probationary one. Takes too long to explain everything and they don’t anticipate my needs. It’s quicker and easier to do it myself. I don’t teach, Tom.” 

His language in describing DiNozzo’s role on the team hadn’t gone unnoticed by Morrow. He’d never once referred to him by his rank though, which was extremely unfortunate for Gibbs since Tom had no intention of bringing Tony back until he did.

“Yes, well it isn’t all that easy to find TADs who are experienced, I’m afraid," Morrow told him. "I’m presently having all sorts of trouble finding someone who can fill in for our SFAs when they need to go on leave or attend compulsory training courses. It’s a nightmare – let me tell you," he confided sadly. 

"A good SFA is worth their weight in gold, Gibbs. Well, if you change your mind about the TAD, let me know and I’ll arrange it.”

So, once again Gibbs had stomped off downstairs as he contemplated another week – at the very least without Tony. He didn’t like it – not one bit and he seemed unable to change the director’s mind, either. The irritated leader of the MCRT desperately needed coffee, and when he arrived at his favourite coffee shop, he decided that instead of his usual two cups. he’d better get three. Better make his order three large ones!

That week, with Tony on assignment, they worked another case that tried his patience to its absolute limits and beyond. Of course, his temper was on a noticeably short fuse but all he could do was hope that whatever the hell Morrow had Tony doing, he’d finish it up early and be back next week. Gibbs honestly didn’t know how much longer he could last before he shot McGee or Cate. It seemed that because McGee had graduated top of his class at FLETC and he’d been an agent out at the field office at Norfolk for a year that he considered he was more qualified, more senior than Cate in all but the most minor of technicalities - namely that he’d joined the team after Todd did. 

His claims about being top of his class prompted Gibbs to check up on Tim’s FLETC record since he’d been more focused on the probie’s computer accomplishments when he added him to the team. His long hours on the computer had helped track down Ari Haswari (so Gibbs could put a bullet in the bastard’s shoulder) which had earned Tim a spot on the MCRT. Jethro had only taken what amounted to a cursory look at his FLETC record, until now. 

Given the probie’s less than sterling hand-to-hand skills, with Cate putting him on his ass without even breaking a sweat, and his mediocre firearms abilities, Jethro was dubious of his so-called outstanding performance…unless FLETC had lowered their standards dramatically. So, he made a few calls, talked to former students (now agents) and an instructor, and found out that while McGee had indeed finished top of the class, it wasn’t the whole story. According to his course coordinator, midway through he’d been ready to quit because he was struggling with some of the subjects, although not the computer courses, obviously – those he’d aced.

A fellow student, Jim Nelson had taken him under his wing and helped him to graduate. So not as impressive as McGee would have everyone believe and Gibbs wondered why he was so all-fired negative about accepting help from DiNozzo, who had years of experience when McGee had no problem accepting Special Agent Nelson’s help to get through.

Cate, on the other hand, felt that her six years as a Secret Service agent plus a year working under Gibbs on the MCRT meant that she had seniority over McGee. Incredibly, she believed that it exceeded DiNozzo too, despite her lack of law enforcement and investigative background. Right now, he’d gladly swap both agents for a couple of FLETC candidates, since he strongly doubted that he’d get the attitude and lip that had been his misfortune to endure lately.

Jethro had been suitably unimpressed when Cate started bossing him around too and telling him how he was feeling. Oh, he was gonna blow soon, he could feel it rising, along with his blood pressure.

What sparked the eruption was when they caught a case where there were damned jurisdictional issues. Chief Petty Officer Christy Burroughs was eating lunch in a downtown café when a dirtbag walked in and held up the place. What a dumbass – who held up a café unless you wanted deli meats? 

Christy had tried to tackle the robber after he shot and killed a young father, accidentally they assumed. She’d been shot too and was in a critical condition, but Metro PD wanted the case since the young guy killed was the nephew of the Chief of Detectives. Gibbs insisted that jurisdiction belonged to NCIS because of CPO Burroughs but Metro Chief of Police asserted that a dead civilian trumped a wounded sailor and Director Morrow agreed.

Which left Gibbs working in a joint task force with the cops and he hated working with LEOs. To be honest, he hated having to deal with them on any level. He usually depended on DiNozzo to liaison between NCIS and the cops when they had no other choice but to work with them. They were always bitching about probable cause, banging on about wanting to obtain warrants for every piddling little thing and playing by the rules. 

Quite frankly, it pissed him off. There was only one set of rules Jethro was concerned about following and those were his rules. 

Working this case with Metro PD turned out to be even worse than expected because one of the detectives was Andy Kochofis. He’d worked with them before and when he didn’t see Tony, he’d asked if he'd had finally come to his senses, accepted one of his numerous job opportunities and left Gibbs.' team All the other cops at the scene had had a good chuckle about the thought of DiNozzo leaving the MCRT since Jethro wasn’t popular with the LEOs. When he'd tersely informed the cop that Tony was on special assignment, he nodded and then he'd started waxing lyrical about what a great cop and detective DiNozzo was. 

Gibbs had forgotten they’d worked together during the Major Kerry murder and then the fiasco of the Suzanne O’Neil case too. He was trying very hard not to think about the fact that he didn’t know when he was getting DiNozzo back on the team, so he didn’t welcome the reminders about how great he was. The junior agents weren’t too keen on hearing about how top notch DiNozzo was either since apparently, they both thought, erroneously, that he wasn’t nearly as good or intelligent as they were. Seriously, Gibbs had no idea that they were so damned delusional. 

When they finally closed the case successfully, Jethro was pleased, even if they ended up catching up on paperwork the rest of the week. At least they were free of the annoying LEOs and it was just Cate and McGee he had to put up with. They were more than enough but at least when the arguing got too bad, he could always duck out and go for coffee. 

The lead agent could hardly wait for DiNozzo to return. Morrow had better get him back by Monday – he needed to have him back. It was plain stupid to say that Cate or McGee could fill in for DiNozzo. Why couldn’t Morrow understand that? Even dumbass Metro cops knew how good he was

As he expected when he demanded his agent back, Tom informed him he would be gone for another week, at least, maybe more. And when he’d demanded to know what he was doing, Morrow smiled and pulled out the same lame bullshit. 

“Sorry, Gibbs. It’s need-to-know, and you don’t, I’m afraid.”

_Damn it, what the hell was DiNozzo up to? Of course, he needed to know, he owned his ass. Not Morrow!_

Meanwhile, this week tested him in ways that he hadn’t been yet. A fraud case that the fraud team could have handled and a threat to cripple the internet which saw McGee spouting forth techno-crap at a zillion miles an hour. Thank the gods that it was a hoax and that they figured it out and charged the dirtbags because he was seriously ready to kill the geek by that point. Jethro felt like his head was gonna explode!

Dragging both of his unfortunate agents off to the range, he drilled them mercilessly before showing them how it was done, wiping the floor with them. Next, he let Cate grapple with the probie, while he sat drinking coffee and watched the bloodbath, feeling calmer than he had all week. Todd was justifiably cock-a-hoop following her brutal demolishment of McGee’s dignity – what was left of it. 

Then he took great personal satisfaction in taking on Cate and showed her that she might have protected the President, but he was a badass Marine who could and did kick her butt. Oh, it was so glorious! 

He then proceeded to show the techno wunderkind that although he might have graduated at the top of his FLETC class, he could kick his ass in seconds without breaking out in a sweat. Whipping both of their asses on the mats and the firing range calmed his savage beast somewhat. It also entertained the other teams, too he'd discovered in the past few weeks, believed they were too arrogant by half. Not surprising then that there was a lot of jeering and catcalling amongst the voluble spectators. Some brought popcorn! 

Despite the distraction and his displacement therapy of beating the crap out of his luckless agents, he was still in a bad frame of mind, unfortunately. If he was honest, Gibbs was super pissed off with the director and not just because he’d appropriated his best agent either and wouldn't give him any indication when he might get him back.

No, it was that Tom had decided to break with longstanding protocol and that just didn’t sit right with Gibbs. He felt like someone slapped him with an old stinky fish, just to humiliate him and he didn’t appreciate it.

As a federal agency, they often had a stream of so-called VIPs coming to NCIS for fact-finding missions, for example, their overseas counterparts would visit and call in to pay their respects or compare notes on issues that affected them all. Not to mention what Gibbs called the ‘Ass Kissers’ from the Hill who’d show up, especially around budget time and expect everyone to bend over and lick their boots. Tom often got stuck escorting the VIPs plus the wannabe VIPs around and anyone who was in the bullpen would get introduced to these idiots and have to make nice. 

In the last few weeks alone, they’d had an Australian Admiral, a senator’s aide who served on a Senate Appropriations Committee, a Portuguese General and a minor Royal from Great Britain he’d never even heard of – the Earl of Ulster, Alexander Windsor. Not that he gave a rat's, but it seemed that Alexander Windsor was 25th in line to the throne. And last, but not least since Gibbs rated him slightly higher than the senator, a journalist doing a story on SecNav, had all traipsed through the bullpen and the building asking dumbass questions and wasting everyone’s time. 

The first time it happened, Jethro put it down to a momentary lapse in protocol. Anyone could make a mistake, but then it happened a second time and he’d given the director the evil eye and Morrow looked chastened and nodded. The third time it happened though, with the Earl of Ulster, Gibbs realised it was a deliberate slap in the face. Morrow when introducing the team had announced Cate first, then McGee and him last of all.

Anyone not familiar with Military protocol might fail to see the seriousness of the snub, but not Jethro. Gibbs was a former Marine after all and he knew damned well that when presenting people to VIPs - be it a team or a platoon, protocol dictated that you didn’t start with the privates, you went with the commanding officer and then down the hierarchical ladder until you reached the lowest-ranked individual. You NEVER introduced the CO last. 

Rank had its privileges, of which respect and recognition of achievements, experience and skill featured highly. He’d worked hard to get where he was, and he deserved to be treated with the respect he was due. Jethro was puzzled and infuriated about the failure to observe protocol. The director was usually a stickler for observing it, until quite recently.

When it happened again today with that smug journalist, he’d been ropable, and he decided that when Tom had finished up his calls in MTAC he was going to call him on his disrespectful actions. As Morrow exited the major threat assessment centre (MTAC) some 40 minutes later, Gibbs was up from his desk and sprinting up the stairs as fast as his bum knee would let him. Catching Tom as he entered his outer office, Jethro called out and Morrow turned, a strange almost self-satisfied expression on his face.

“Jethro, what can I do for you? If you’re looking for a sitrep on DiNozzo, I’ve got nothing.”

“There’s something else I wanted to discuss, Director.”

“Fine, come in then and have a seat.”

In his typical, bloody-minded Leroy Jethro Gibbs fashion, he remained standing, so Tom sniggered and sat down. Gibbs couldn't believe his ears. The director dared to snigger at him – what the hell was going on? 

“So, Agent Gibbs, what seems to be the problem?”

“Director, you broke protocol when introducing my team. I should be introduced first as the CO or lead agent and then the rest of the team introduced in order of seniority, with the most junior member acknowledge last. It’s a protocol that reinforces the chain of command and working as we do with the Marines and the navy, they expect it. Why are you suddenly ignoring a long establish convention which is also agency protocol?”

Tom regarded him with an air of amusement, although Jethro didn’t think there was anything funny about it. “Ah, I see. Well as you point out, it is rather old fashion convention. So I thought perhaps in an attempt to be less anachronistic and create a more inclusive feeling amongst the staff, it wouldn’t hurt to dump that stuffy old protocol. Besides, I have it on good authority that people think it ought to be phased out in favour of introduction order based on intelligence level and or competence.” 

“Where did you hear that crap? With respect Director, that is a bad idea.” Gibbs told him, his tone belying the purported respect.

“Military stakeholders wouldn’t appreciate or understand that logic and it wouldn’t reinforce the chain of command which is an essential tenet in law enforcement too. Rank has its privileges, principally respect and obedience. Little things have a huge importance in establishing a Chain of Command and supervisors are entitled to be respected – they worked hard for their positions.”

Tom nodded. “All highly valid arguments, Gibbs. Chain of command and respect is crucial to the functioning of a team. I’ll give due consideration to your arguments. Now if you excuse me, I must return a call to Mrs Morrow.”

As Gibbs left the director’s office, bemused about Morrow motivation and outlandish rationalisations, he missed his boss chuckling, “My guess - we’ll be having another little chat tomorrow,” as he exited the room.

It was Friday afternoon and Gibbs’ sharp ears heard Balboa and his SFA Maria Gonzales mention DiNozzo on the way to get a coffee in the break room. Curious about why they were talking about him, he followed them in and poured himself a cup of coffee, which was pretty suspicious behaviour considering he only drank the NCIS swill when he was desperate, but he didn't want to look like he was eavesdropping on their private conversation. Fortunately, Ric and Jason didn’t seem to notice him though.

“You said that DiNozzo sent you an email today? He alright?” Ric asked casually with a smirk at Gibbs' back as he made himself a cup of instant coffee.

Gonzales had to work hard not laugh when she realised that he'd inadvertently used Caitlin Todd's dandelion and chicory coffee substitute. She hoped he'd take a big swig of the beverage in her presence. 

Maria rolled her eyes exaggeratedly at her team leader but verbally played it straight. “Oh yeah, he’s more than alright. He sounds like he’s doing great – sent me a couple of photos. I’ll show them to you when I’m back at my desk, but I have to say that he sounds like he’s in no hurry to return to DC.” They both saw Gibbs’ back tense up and they exchanged mischievous winks. 

“Hey Boss, what do I gotta do to get be made senior field agent TAD in Marseille, Naples and Rota? I’d give my eye teeth…” Gonzales whined theatrically as Gibbs poured the coffee down the sink, much to her disappointment.

Balboa and his 2IC started chuckling as Gibbs went storming out of the break room and it was no surprise to either of them that he headed straight for the stairs that led to the up to the director’s office and MTAC. And you didn't need to be a rocket scientist to predict that Jethro wasn't going to the multiple threat assessment centre. 

Ric grabbed his phone and quickly texted the director: **Storm Alert! Hurricane Gunny about to hit. Force ten!**

Pocketing his phone, he looked over at Maria. “Well, that was fun. Honestly, how does Tony seem?”

“He sounds good, Boss. Do you think he’ll be back next week?”

“Up to the director, Gonzales.” Balboa didn’t mention it, but he knew that Director Morrow was planning on making Gibbs sweat a little longer. He’d decided to send the SFA at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii to do an advance law enforcement seminar into organised crime and racketeering. Tony was going to be TAD as his replacement, lucky bastard!

~o0o~

Tom Morrow was trying to keep his head above water. His philosophy re the never-ending paperwork which came with his job was if you stopped treading water, the undertow would drag you under and drown you. Every chance he got, even if it was just a spare five minutes, he used it to catch up on paperwork, the bane of every director’s life. 

As Morrow reviewed a case file before sign off on it, he got a text message from Balboa and chuckled. He’d know Jethro for a long time and he supposed they could be considered friends, as much as the emotionally closed-off man could have meaningful friendships with anyone after he lost his family. That said, the man could truly try the patience of a saint. And one thing was certain, Thomas Morrow was in no way a saint!

Less than sixty seconds later Hurricane Gunny arrived, and Tom could have sworn that he could seem steam pouring out the agent's ears, mouth and nose like in those old Warner Bros cartoons. His facial expression thunderous, Gibbs wasted no time in beating about the bush.

“DiNozzo’s super-secret mission is TAD for senior field agents in Naples, Rota and Marseille? You take my senior field agent away from the major case response team to fill in for other SFAs? In what universe is that logical or fair to make me cope without him? What the hell was the point, Tom?”

“The point, Gibbs, was that I needed an experienced SFA who could fit into a team easily and take over for the senior field agent, settling in rapidly, since they were just short deployments," Morrow said archly. "His field experience is invaluable alone but his undercover ability to fit easily into groups makes him worth his weight in gold in settling into teams swiftly.”

Morrow stared at Gibbs sternly and said, “DiNozzo is super skilled at sizing up people and training them.”

“Robbing Peter to pay Paul is a genuine dumbass strategy, Tom. I need DiNozzo here, not gallivanting around on someone else's damned team.” Gibbs stormed at him angrily.

“Really, Jethro? I didn’t think it would inconvenience you at all.”

“What the devil does that mean, Director?”

“I was just taking a leaf out of your book. Rule # 5 Don’t waste good.”

Gibbs glared at him dangerously. “You saying I’m wasting good, Tom?”

Morrow shrugged. “If the shoe fits.”

“Bull. Shit. Dir- rec-tor!”

“So, explain to me why you never refer to DiNozzo as your senior field agent? Explain why at the crime scene in Norfolk when dealing with the head of base security you introduced the team as Cate, McGee and DiNozzo last.”

“He came running to tell you that Tom?”

“No, he didn’t tell me, Gibbs," Morrow said truthfully since technically he told Agent Balboa and he'd overheard the conversation. There were other people there and they talk. You know how it is. And don’t try to tell me that it meant nothing since just yesterday you were at great pains to convince me that protocol introducing team members from highest rank to lowest was an important component of team discipline and instilling respect. You're a damned hypocrite -you demand respect, yet you’re perfectly happy to undermine DiNozzo’s rank," he growled.

Tom shook his head in disgust. “Is it any wonder the probie agents don’t respect him when you can’t practise what you preach? Ever heard of the Golden Rule – I think it is very apropos, Jethro.”

‘You set me up with that protocol shit, damn it!”

‘Oh no, I do believe you did a damned good job of hanging yourself, Agent Gibbs. "I just supplied the rope,” Morrow smirked maliciously, knowing he was pissing off the furious agent even more. “What’s good for the goose is also even better for the gander, I’d say," he told a fuming Gibbs before changing course.

“But let’s return to the question of you wasting DiNozzo’s skills and experience. My memory may not be what it used to but wasn’t it an unwritten but immutable rule that the investigator that finds the lead runs with it?”

“Still is.” Gibbs all but snarled at him.

“And yet when Tony found the entrance to the tunnel where PO Figgus was found, you stated in your report that you left him up top to wait for the ME and took Todd and McGee down to process the crime scene. That IS wasting good, not to mention it is humiliating for him and telegraphs to the rookies that you think that all he’s good for is probie work. Call me stupid but with a case that was as disturbing and as bizarre as this one was, I’d want my most experienced agent checking out the scene to make sure it’s safe.

“Even if DiNozzo hadn’t found the entrance, I’d still have wanted him getting the first look at it since he’s an experienced homicide detective and he has an eagle eye, not two rookies. I’d have wanted him processing the scene to maximise my chances of finding the killer. 

Looking furious, Gibbs snapped at him, “Cate’s a profiler.”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that one," Tom conceded, "If you'll concede that she’s a lame one based upon her performances thus far on the MCRT and what about McGee? That was what – his SECOND case on the team as a field agent? 

Tom glared at the supervisory agent mockingly and gave him a gimme gesture with his hand. "How do you explain that? I honestly want to know what possessed you when you decided to give the probie's job to your highly trained SFA and the SFA job's to a green probie?”

“Stops DiNozzo getting too cocky and gives McGee a boost of confidence.” 

“Well, seeing that you saw fit to give him probie work and you don’t think he’s valuable enough to get someone to watch his six, I figured you wouldn’t miss him. I, on the other hand, can put his skills to good use, and I did. He helped solve half a dozen cases in the last three weeks and gave the teams he worked with some decent leads on about ten cold cases, too.” Tom stated proudly.

“You telling me, how to run my team, Director?”

“Hell, yeah, Gibbs. Me boss, you underling. When I see a resource being ignored or under deployed, I have an ethical obligation to Congress and the taxpayers to step in and make sure they are getting value for money. Ensure we're fulfilling our mission statement to the best of our capabilities. Plus, he needs to be able to do his job, not worrying about your petty mind games and the constant attacks on him by the team. 

“The relentless assault on his abilities, intelligence and education will end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy if you’re not careful. Or else you’ll lose him. He’s already hinting that he wouldn’t mind staying on as a TAD since the last three weeks have boosted his self-confidence dramatically, making him feel needed and respected. That's not something he gets from you or the junior agents.” 

“He belongs to me, Tom. And my agents don’t attack him.”

“He belongs to the agency and last time I checked, it’s MY agency, so he's my agent," Morrow said dryly. "Think maybe it’s time you saw someone about your delusions, Jethro. If you don’t see the attacks, the insubordination and the contempt your junior agents show DiNozzo, then you need a nice little vacation in the Bethesda Psychiatric ward.”

It’s called banter, Director. It doesn’t do any harm, besides, DiNozzo gives as good as he gets.”

“I knew your eyesight was failing but I didn’t realise you were going deaf too. Sure, Tony teases Todd and McGee but he doesn’t call them stupid or incompetent or a pig. He never questions their competencies – he’s respectful of their specialties.” 

“Some days Todd makes personal attack after personal attack. Hell, even when the discussion is case orientated she never lets a chance go by to stab him about his shortcomings and like you, has an unerring knack for finding all his vulnerable spots. I get complaints constantly from other teams about the vitriol and the negativity down on the bullpen floor. 

“McGee essentially told your senior field agent he was like the serial killer who was chaining women up and leaving them to die. He also expressed the opinion that you see DiNozzo’s only redeeming quality is that he managed to get a report in on time once. I hope that isn’t the case, but honestly, I’m not sure, anymore. It is little wonder that after only a few days in the field, your probie thinks he’s smarter than his senior field agent?”

He shot a poisonous glare to his agent. “Fix it Gibbs or I will," he promised grimly. "And I’ll be protecting my best asset, not mollycoddling ones who may show potential. A bird in the hand.”

Gibbs didn’t take kindly to Morrow's threats. “Did your secret source tell you what an ass DiNozzo was being when we were down in Jacksonville Naval Air Station?’ he snapped.

“Oh yeah, in technicolour, Gibbs. Perhaps he was taking a leaf out of your book, like when you go off to get coffee. Or he just thought if he was being treated like a naughty probie he might as well act like one. That’s why I sent him off on assignment since I have no intention of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

“He needed a sense of purpose and to know someone had faith in him. Fair warning, if I see him being wasted again then DiNozzo is mine and you won’t get him back again. That includes not putting him in dangerous situations with no one to watch his back unless you get prior approval. I won’t lose him because of your laissez-faire attitude to your own damned rules. Hint time, dumbass - I’m talking about rule # 1 and rule # 15.” 

Gibbs gave him the infamous ice blue steely glare, but Tom wasn’t fazed. As the director, he couldn’t cave at the first sign of pressure or he’d be out of a job.

“I said… Special Agent Gibbs that you use him or lose him. Are we clear?”

“Crystal clear, Director.” Gibbs snarled at him sullenly and Tom was reminded of a truculent teenager. 

“When do I get MY SENIOR FIELD AGENT back again?” he queried, emphasizing his SFA sarcastically but the director saw it as progress that he was finally acknowledging Tony’s seniority for a change.

“Oh, I have already committed him to TAD at the Pearl Harbour office for a week to fill in for Special Agent Owens.” Quelling the angry outburst, he confided, “Think yourself lucky that you finally acknowledged him as your SFA, you jackass. If you hadn’t, I’d have sent him to London and Singapore, too. 

In the meantime, the team is on cold cases as of today. Hopefully, that will give you a chance to get your house in order, for him to come back to. Last chance, Special Agent Gibbs – I’m not bluffing. Don’t blow it.”

As Gibbs stomped off in disgust, heading towards the door, Morrow let him go until he put his hand on the doorknob. 

“Oh, Special Agent Gibbs.”

He turned around to make eye contact with the director with reluctance. "Yeah."

“I’m ordering you to gas up the MCRT truck every day for the next month. If I find out that you have been palming it off on your agents – and I will find out – then I’ll assign that job to you permanently. Are we clear?”

Gibbs stormed over to his desk so he could glare down at him. “That’s probie work, Director,” he objected in disbelief.

“And yet, you always make DiNozzo gas the crime scene truck. So, I’ve decided to test out your techniques to find out if they are effective. You see, I have an agent… a team leader who I’m concerned may be getting a bit too cocky for my taste, so I decided to give him a probie job and see if it works in helping him get his head out of his ass. Who knows, it might become a new agency training technique,” Morrow deadpanned, enjoying Gibbs' expression of outrage.

“It’s damned humiliating to have the SSA doing probie work. Bad for discipline!” 

“Well, I guess that might be the case. I’ll tell you what, Gibbs, when you have completed the assignment, I’ll expect a detailed report from you about the pros and cons of your technique. Let’s call it the _What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander Training Strategy?_ I’ll look forward to reading it and forwarding it on to the Human Resources Department, too.” 

The End

Notes: 

SCAN stands for Scientific Content Analysis

Major Kerry was the football carrier in Yankee White who Secret Service Agent Caitlyn Todd was having an affair with and when Gibbs learned about it, she tendered her resignation from the United States Secret Service for breaking Fraternisation Regulations.

BTW does anyone know who (or what) Alphonso D’Abruzzo is without Googling it? Virtual Tim-tams for anyone who does. 


	3. Vanished: You Can't Handle the Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN Warnings: Content in this one deals with body modification (tattoos and piercing) which may cause offense due to its graphic nature. The specific section occurs at the end of Part 4. I don’t want to give out spoilers but if you read the first two thirds of the section you will work it out. The graphic discussion is proceeded by five asterisks so you can skip this part if you are easily offended and proceed right to Part 5.
> 
> Seriously, dear readers, the lengths I go to in researching stuff for these stories. Can you even begin to imagine what my search history looks like to the average or not so average observer?

Series: There’s Always Tom Morrow

Episode: S02 E03 Vanished

Title: You Can’t Handle the Truth

Characters: Abby Sciuto, Timothy McGee, Caitlin Todd, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Thomas Morrow, Anthony DiNozzo, Sister Rosita, Genevieve Taylor (OC), Suzanne Collier (OC), Lieutenant Baker (OC)

Beta’ed: Nope, so expect the errant comma and semicolon. It is when it’s all said and done my bête noire.

Part 1

NCIS Probationary Field Agent Timothy McGee sat at his desk freaking out ever since he’d been informed that the director wanted to talk to him after lunch. He had absolutely no idea what Director Morrow might want to discuss with him. He ran a quick mental checklist of everything he’d done recently and couldn’t think of anything that might earn him directorial ire or a need to censure him. The probationary agent wished that Gibbs was in the office to provide support should there might be some sort of a problem, though. Gibbs and DiNozzo were off carrying out security vetting at the Norfolk Naval Base (Tim’s old stomping grounds) and they weren’t expected back until tomorrow at the very earliest. So unfortunately, there was no help from that quarter.

It did seem to Tim that it was incredibly convenient that Director Morrow would want to see him when Gibbs wasn’t around to watch his back. Still, despite Gibbs’ rule about there being no such thing as coincidence, empirically, Tim knew that wasn’t true, at least not always. Coincidences did happen, not everything was inexorably connected.

Investigating further, when he asked Cate if she’d received a summons from the director too, the brunette had shaken her head, claiming ignorance. She’d asked him disapprovingly if he’d been up to any mischief to which he protested his innocence quite emphatically, saying he wasn’t DiNozzo. However, having sussed out his nervousness about the imminent interview, she proceeded to torture him with possible examples of why the director had scheduled a meeting with him, knowing she was getting under his skin.

Oh sure, he’d seen her do the same thing to DiNozzo. She’d find a weak spot and poke at it relentlessly and he’d thought it was hilarious, but somehow it was a whole lot more enjoyable when Cate did her psychological profiling thingy on Tony. He’d lean back in his office chair, a big shit-eating grin on his face as she went straight for his annoying team member’s soft underbelly. Watching her plunging her rapier-sharp psychological sabre in and twisting it around just to watch DiNozzo squirm was priceless. Tim was now learning that it felt completely different when he was on the receiving end and she decided to use her uncanny ability to seek out his vulnerabilities and use them against him. It sucked and he wished she stop.

Tim knew he always folded under pressure when he was around stern authoritarian types, particular males. Probably because they reminded him of his father, Admiral John McGee, who treated Tim like he was one of his underlings, rather than his son. Tim never felt like his father was proud of him, he never felt good enough, even though intellectually, he knew his father loved him. He just wished that his dad was even a little more demonstrable, less disapproving and more accepting of Tim’s differences.

Even as he thought about his difficult relationship with his father, McGee wondered how their resident profiler, who was so bad at profiling victims and suspects, could also be so adept at zeroing in on his and Tony’s vulnerabilities. The disparity between her profiling in different contexts might be because she spent a lot more time with colleagues, so she had more time to observe them, as opposed to people who she profiled during investigations. As the probationary agent pondered this possibility, another explanation occurred to him, after all, he was a certified genius with an IQ of 147, and he probably should have thought of it earlier. She undoubtedly used her United States Secret Service contacts to gather intelligence on Tony and his background.

He’d heard scuttlebutt that DiNozzo’s father was supposed to be some big-shot super rich businessman, so it was quite likely she’d gotten intel about him from the Treasury Department of the Secret Service. Cate may have resigned from the US Secret Service, but he was sure that she still had a contact or two in the agency. He wondered if she’d investigated Gibbs; he wouldn’t put it past her, she was pretty damned ballsy after all.

She kind of reminded him of a younger version of his paternal grandmother, Penny McGee in some ways, although in other respects, they were like chalk and cheese. For example, his female workmate whined and complained about male patriarchy and how it made it ten times harder for women to succeed in the workplace than men. Yet after getting the plumb assignment, being on the protection team for the POTUS and a Secret Service profiler she’d thrown it all away for a man. Having a tempestuous love- affair with one of the carriers of the US Nuclear Codes broke fraternization regulations and when it was discovered, she’d been forced to resign before she was fired.

Meanwhile, Penny McGee hadn’t just managed to break through the so-called glass ceiling in all its academic bigotry and condescension, she’d smashed it. And that was long before anyone else had even coined the now much-used glass ceiling phrase. Furthermore, Penny had done so all without the constant need to remind everyone about the gross disparity that existed when it came to gender equality which, arguably was even more pronounced back then. The simple truth was that she was good enough that she didn’t need to remind people of her accomplishments or the obstacles she'd overcome along the way.

Of course, McGee hadn’t known Caitlin Todd when she was at the apex of her career on the POTUS’ protection team. Maybe she wasn’t constantly lecturing her male colleagues about patriarchy and male dominance back then. It might be that her whole harridan-like hectoring of her male colleagues was a way of her dealing with her disappointment at having reached the pinnacle of her career at the Secret Service and then losing everything she strived for so unexpectedly. If she blamed her fall from grace on ‘the system of gender biases and inequalities for females,’ rather than her out of control libido and impulsiveness, it conveniently absolved her of personal responsibility for losing her job. Forced to start over at NCIS as a newbie investigator, which if she was being honest, she’d have to admit was nowhere near as prestigious a position was easier if she could blame on the system.

Not knowing if his hypothesis was accurate or not, he decided to do some subtle digging to validate or refute it. Abby and Ducky were obvious sources he could grill since both worked with Cate before she started working for NCIS. Plus, those two loved to gossip, although he could just imagine the veteran medical examiner correcting him firmly. ‘I hate to be a nit-picker, young man but I’m far from just an average gossip. I am a raconteur par excellence.’ 

Deciding that he’d research his hypothesis as soon as he had an opportunity, McGee tried to focus on the cold case files they were supposed to be studying, except that Cate wouldn’t stop her psychological niggling. Finally, Tim grew tired of her constant aggravating him so he’d grown a pair as DiNozzo would say. He told her in a voice that he imagined was authoritative instead of slightly quavering, as he feared, to shut up. He reminded her again, (as indeed he had with DiNozzo when they’d been finishing up the last case of the missing Marine helicopter pilot) that he was now a full-fledged member of the team, not a TAD that they could push around and he demanded their respect.

DiNozzo had just laughed at him and told him he would always outrank him, but McGee knew better. With his level of genius, Tim reckoned it was only a matter of time before Gibbs realised that he was much better qualified to be his 2IC than an ex-cop with a Phys. Ed. degree or a protection agent, who had left the USSS in disgrace. After all, he was the one who found Ari Haswari for the boss, not Cate or DiNozzo.

When he’d pointed out to Cate that he was now a genuine member of the MCRT and expected to be treated with respect, she’d nearly wet her pants laughing at his naivete and replied waspishly, “Oh you wish, Tim. That’s so not how it works. You don’t earn respect just for being appointed to a team, Probie. You have to work for it.”

Part 2

Special Agents Anthony DiNozzo and Leroy Jethro Gibbs were headed down to the Norfolk Naval Base to carry out security-vetting of the employees of a small independent technology firm. The company had won the tender to install a component on the navy’s radar systems aboard their submarine fleet. Tony snorted mentally, thinking it would have made a lot better sense to vet them before awarding them the contract but someone in the Department of Defence had screwed the pooch, as Gibbs would say, and forgotten about that pesky little step. Therefore, they’d been sent down to Norfolk by Director Morrow to rectify the lapse in procedure asap so that the refit could proceed. They’d likely be away from the office for two to three days, depending upon several factors and normally, getting to work on his own with Gibbs would be something Tony would relish but he wasn’t looking forward to this assignment.

In the good old days (before Gibbs hiring of Todd and McGee) the former Marine and cop had essentially worked together as partners, but with the newest inclusions onto the team, their dynamic, unsurprisingly, had changed beyond recognition. Rather than being two equals, they’d morphed into an angry, uncommunicative, and extremely authoritarian boss and his flaky, skirt-chasing goof-ball subordinate who needed to be head-slapped to be able to concentrate on the job for five seconds. The dramatic change in their working relationship felt bizarre on so many levels and left Tony floundering as he tried to forge a new role on the team. 

Oh sure, Tony wouldn’t dispute that Gibbs had a lot more experience than he did as a federal agent since he’d only been a fed for the last three years. However, it was also fair to say that at least a significant amount of the time Gibbs had spent as an NCIS agent had been spent running around engaged in Black Ops and counter-intelligence work. So, in some ways, Tony had far more experience in investigation and law enforcement than Gibbs did. After all, in his six years as a cop he’d worked as a patrol officer, walked a beat, was a transit and a Vice cop, went undercover on numerous occasions and finally he was a homicide detective in a city with a very high homicide rate. All of which had enabled him to build up an impressive network of experience and valuable law enforcement contacts, too. 

In his opinion, it was also their different skills sets and dissimilar professional experiences which had made them such an effective partnership. Tony thought about interviewing people as a prime example; Gibbs excelled at interrogating suspects through a combination of intimidation, psychological mind games, following his gut and projecting his infamous second B-for-bastard persona at the hapless individual. Meanwhile, Tony shone when he was communicating with witnesses and coaxing information out of people who were reluctant or didn’t know that they possessed crucial information. Together they’d complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

As a bonus, there’d also been far less of the testosterone driven posturing and one-upmanship from Gibbs, which was no longer the case now that there were two additional agents on the MCRT. Back when it was just the two of them there’d been more give-and-take, even Gibbs’ teasing had been far more good-natured, rather than being aimed at putting Tony down and making him an object of derision. Now, as far as Tony was concerned, Gibbs’ barbed shots were intended to put him in his place and make it clear to him and the probies that his status was as Gibbs’ dim-witted but ever faithful lap dog.

For DiNozzo, the former relationship of collegiality had been akin to other partnerships he’d had when he was a LEO (discounting Danny) only better, so he missed these old days with just the two of them. Even if the workload was brutal due to the smaller team, they worked like a well-oiled machine and Tony loved his job. Likewise, he was never worried that Gibbs wouldn’t have his back when he needed backup and even now when it came to going into a dangerous situation in the field, he still trusted him. 

Unfortunately, he no longer trusted his boss (Tony didn't think of Gibbs as a partner anymore) to have his six in other situations, especially when it came to the new agents or their training. Despite them working together for the last three years, suddenly Gibbs seemed to have forgotten that Tony took his responsibility for watching out for his teammates extremely seriously. Seemingly, Gibbs was now buying into the façade that Tony didn’t take anything, including his job seriously and quite frankly, it pissed the former cop off. Maybe it was time to reassess his career on the MCRT.

Tony thought back to the start of their three-hour car ride to Norfolk Naval Bases – well it was normally a three-hour journey, give or take some but with Gibbs at the wheel, he usually managed to knock the driving time down to approximately two and a half hours. Although, Tony had heard the Gibbs lore (as passed around by gullible probies and FLETC graduates) that Jethro was able to arrive at his destination in a fraction of the time that it took mere mortals to drive the same distance. Granted Gibbs usually had some cockamamie short cut involving driving cross country at breakneck speed, but the fact was that the fastest route via road was approximately 194 miles on the I-64 E route and it was slightly over 147 miles as the crow flies, so tales of him arriving in 30 minutes were bullshit and the result of feverish minds. That or Gibbs had started the rumours himself to give weight to the mystique that he liked to project. 

Firmly ignoring the vagaries of Gibbs’ driving techniques after three years working together, it hadn’t taken him too long once they’d gotten underway for Tony to realise that something was wrong. They seemed to have a honking big elephant riding along with them in the NCIS sedan which he’d signed out of the motor pool. He’d gloomily noted that the mechanic had once again assigned them a car whose shock absorbers were due to be replaced. It never failed; when they were headed somewhere on a road trip, the staff handed them the keys of a vehicle that were already RS. They knew Gibbs would thrash the car just to get to where he was going a few minutes sooner, often by taking it off-road in terrain that normally required four-wheel drive.

Anyway, DiNozzo decided that since the elephant was taking up the entire back seat and breathing heavily on the nape of his neck that he’d better address said pachyderm asap. It was no use putting it off since they had a long drive and he preferred to beard the lion in his den sooner rather than later. If he was going get a licking, verbal or physical he’d learnt at an early age just to bite the bullet and get it over and done with. Tony figured that was why people thought he had a death wish but dealing with Senior had taught him that the longer he let the old man stew in his juices the worse it was for him and he’d discovered the same rang true with Gibbs, too.

Taking a deep breath, he inquired gamely, “So, I gather I’ve done something to piss you off, Boss.”

Glancing across at Tony longer than was prudent for someone responsible for a five-thousand-pound car in traffic, he said in his typically passive-aggressive snark, “Ya think, DiNozzo?”

Resisting the strong urge to roll his eyes and reply that he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it, Tony merely replied, “Care to share, since unlike some people, I’m not psychic.”

Giving him the laser-like glare that was supposed to incinerate him, Gibbs said. “Ya wrote Cate up for not following procedure when you were searching the quarters of the pilots, Newell and Barnett.” 

Tony sighed. As the senior field agent, he shouldn’t have to justify this action to Gibbs. It had been perfectly straight forward disciplinary action on the part of a supervisor.

He clarified curtly, “Agent Todd notice steam coming from the bathroom, indicating that the apartment was probably not unoccupied as we previously assumed. At that point, she should have retreated from the threat and informed me that she believed we had an unknown person inside the apartment. Instead of following procedure, she chose to investigate by herself and she was ended up as a hostage.”

Gibbs didn’t seem impressed. “It was Captain Barnett and there was no harm done. It didn’t warrant a written caution, DiNozzo.”

Tony couldn’t believe his ears. “Yes, it turned out to be Barnett, who didn’t have anything to hide or any nefarious intend but that’s not the point, Gibbs. If he’d wanted to, having gotten the drop on Todd, he could have snapped her neck or slit her throat with a K-bar before she knew what was happening. He is a MARINE; they are trained to kill as you well know.”

Tony shook his head at Gibbs lack of outrage. “What if it had been someone other than Captain Barnett, a stranger with evil intent - she let herself get taken and lost her weapon. That is a damned serious slip-up.”

“Sometimes these things happen, DiNozzo.”

“Yeah, I’m well aware that sometimes shit happens, despite following procedures and people die or are injured despite everything but NOT this time. Agent Todd was a former secret service protection agent and she should be used to following procedures, so she has no excuse, yet she screwed up. The end result was that Cate was taken hostage and she surrendered her gun, both of which were totally avoidable situations, so I wrote her up. Hopefully, it might make her wake up and follow proper NCIS procedure next time. What’s your problem?”

“I don’t write people up, you know this. I handle things face to face. Ya should have had the balls to tear her a new one, not put it on paper like some asshole officer.”

Tony knew what Gibbs was saying was the truth, he preferred to dress people down, usually delivering a tongue lashing right out in public, but the senior field officer also knew it would have been futile doing so. Cate would have just ignored him.

“Yeah, well I decided to make it official so she might take it seriously. Thanks to you telling her on her second case that I don’t get to tell her what to do, only you do, that ship of a verbal reprimand from me being an effective training tool has long since sailed, Boss,” he said with heavy irony.

“Which was why I wanted it to be on the record that I’d warned her officially about her ignoring procedure. That way should she ever get herself or someone else killed by going lone wolf instead of reporting to her partner and superior, I’d be able to show that I tried to train her appropriately and she’d ignored that training.”

Gibbs was fuming and Tony knew that he was going to be in the doghouse for not following one of Gibbs unspoken but inviolable rules, but he didn’t care. Todd was a loose cannon and a danger to herself and others if she didn’t follow procedure out in the field. He was not going to apologise for doing his job to the best of his abilities. Being Gibbs’ second was far from easy, with the man hamstringing his efforts to perform his duties at every turn and he’d basically left him with no other choice but to make it official.

“Don’t ya think it is a bit rich citing Cate for ignoring procedure when you were drooling over some girly magazine. That's not exactly acting professionally, DiNozzo.”

Tony smirked; it seemed that the Morality Police (aka Caitlin Todd) had been whispering in Gibbs shell-like ear, expressing her misplaced ire at the official caution. Not that he was shocked though. Honestly, it was just too easy to rile up Sergeant Blue Stocking, using one of her favourite hobby horses to do so. 

The very first time he’d encountered the then secret service agent was when he’d been sketching the crime scene aboard Air Force One and she rather acerbically enquired as to why he was using such an antiquated method of collecting evidence as opposed to taking photos. He’d been quite tolerant of her 'question' at the time, since it was blatantly clear that what she'd known about crime scene investigation could fit on a postage stamp. So, he politely set out to explain why a sketch was necessary, in addition to taking crime photos of the body of the POTUS’ dead football carrier.

To make his point more fully, Tony had picked up a magazine (which happened to have a bikini-clad model on the cover) to explain that without a frame of reference which a crime scene sketch would provide, there was no way to tell what the model’s bust size was. Ducky had commented that his explanation including his visual aid had been inspired, but Cate had been highly affronted and decide right there and then that Tony must be a male chauvinist pig. Of course, she totally and conveniently ignored the fact that the magazine wasn’t his which was in his humble opinion pretty damned pathetic seeing as she claimed to be a profiler. 

As it was lying around aboard the POTUS’ plane, he presumed that it belonged to the military personnel who served as football carriers or the Secret Service agents. For all he knew at that time when he picked it up, it could have been her damned magazine and she was a lesbian checking out the hot babes. And that would have been fine with him; he didn’t have a problem with who people were sexually attracted to, with the caveat that they must be consenting adults. Like a lot of cops, Tony abhorred paedophiles but unlike some sections of law enforcement he was also broadminded about people’s sexual preferences.

Of course, after spending very little time with her, it became very clear that Todd was quite homophobic, so he discounted that possibility that it might be her magazine. Not because she couldn’t still be lesbian and in denial or still in the closet but because if she was, she wouldn’t have left evidence of her preferences out in clear view for everyone to see. Anyway, the point was he utilized something which was lying around, he wasn’t the one who brought it aboard. 

Honestly appalled that a so-called profiler would rush to judgement so fast and be so blind, DiNozzo couldn’t resist messing with her. He admitted that he hoped to teach her a lesson, so he played up to her prejudices, acting like the chauvinistic skirt chaser she’d instantly decided he was and then she’d never wavered from her flawed first impression. It was one of his character failings, having his old man tell him what a loser he was as a kid, how he’d end up in the gutter and drag his friends down with him, his younger self has revelled in living down to his father’s expectations of him at the various schools he’d been exiled to after his mother died. 

Likewise, Cate with her judgmental schoolmarm persona had equally managed to rub him up the wrong way, unlike so many other female agents and cops he’d worked with in his career. But Caitlin Todd was so sure of her superiority and skill and so transparent about her opinion of him that he’d reacted by showing her what she expected to see. He gloried in the knowledge that she was too stupid/bigoted/ inflexible to see beyond his masks.

The junior NCIS agent (who’d formerly protected the POTUS) had made it far too easy for him to bait her and play to her biases. It was child’s play for the consummate undercover operative he was, and he played the role she’d cast him flawlessly. Although to be honest, he kept expecting that someday she would figure it out, but it seemed that self-confirming bias was far stronger than her profiling abilities. While Tony was waiting the Probie had joined the team seemed to have decided to take his cues from Todd. DiNozzo had taken some small comforted in the belief or hope that Gibbs was aware of his worth, although this conversation wasn’t exactly easing his concerns on that score either.

Tony couldn’t help smirking when he thought about Gibbs sending them to investigate the apartment of the two missing Marine pilots. They had no idea what had happened to the men and were looking for leads. Hints about their state of mind prior to the night flight, anything at all that might explain their disappearance including things that they might be concealing or even in hindsight with the discovery of Capt. Barnett, clues that the scene might have been faked.

As an incurable snooper by profession into other people’s possessions and highly observant by nature, it hadn’t exactly been a surprise to Tony that they found a girly mag in the living room. The pilots were young officers sharing an apartment, which some suspicious bigoted types might think was suspicious. In his experience it wasn’t exactly unusual for guys to have that type of material lying around, despite Cate’s moral and or feminist disapproval. 

Tony had noted that it was quite common reading matter/ interior decor in the military. Given the institutionalized homophobia which existed in the armed forces and by extension, the law enforcement community, he’d often felt that it was used by a lot of guys to proclaim their straightness, regardless of their sexual orientation. Despite the don’t ask don’t tell dictum, anyone suspected of being gay faced an uphill battle for acceptance and career advancement, so it seemed perfectly logical that guys felt the need to project a façade of heterosexualism, even if they were straight and especially if they weren’t.

Plus, that magazine was also a damned good place to conceal something that you didn’t want people to see, effectively hiding it in plain sight, which was why he’d checked through it to see if there was anything there. Tony guaranteed many agents or cops would eye it with distaste or moral outrage like Cate but then disregard it as a place where someone might chose to hide something so of course he wasn’t going to ignore it.

Yeah, okay, so he’d also used the moment to embarrass the shit out of Cate, playing up the sex-obsessed role she’d assigned him on their first meeting because maliciously he enjoyed highlighting her gullibility. Sure, it was a bit mean, but then she was the one that called him a pig and a male chauvinist yet then in the next breath was angry about him treating her as one of the guys and getting too comfortable with her. She wanted to be treated as an equal but also when it suited her, as Daddy’s Little Princess, given the non-icky jobs and a room with a bath (not a shower because girls took baths) which meant that when it came to male colleagues, they couldn’t win with her. 

The fact that Tony had her back, ready to shoot Captain Barnett in the head when he’d captured her and disarmed her- despite her failing to alert him to an intruder in the apartment - never factored into her whining to Gibbs about what had occurred. Not that it exactly surprised the senior field agent, but it did disappoint him that she was such a piss-poor profiler that she’d failed to recognise he still had her six. Still, Tony expected that Gibbs would be able to see beyond her over-the-top feminist rhetoric and her moralistic outrage. Unfortunately, it seemed he’d been dead wrong about his boss' opinion of him for them to be having this conversation though. 

As they sped along the Hampton Roads Beltway towards the tunnel, Tony had a major epiphany. Every time he pointed out Todd’s mistakes or dared to give her a dressing-down, Gibbs took it as a personal criticism of himself, probably because he’d personally recruited her for his precious team. Tony wondered what Gibbs saw because he seriously doubted it was what he saw when he first encountered her. A profiler who failed to spot a serious threat in a journalist who was she had more than a nodding acquaintance with who’d turned out to be an assassin that attempted to kill the POTUS. She was also a secret service protection agent who ignored fraternization regulations and was therefore compromised, as in extremely vulnerable to being blackmailed. As far as he was concerned, Caitlin Todd was hardly in any position to be acting as the moral police.

Yeah, who wouldn’t think she was a real find and want to hire her straight away before someone else snapped her up? Although, according to analysts who worked in Major Threat Assessment Centre, Gibbs told the director he wanted her on the team because she had balls. As if Gibbs weren’t enough for any team! 

Chuckling cynically, he said, “Well, you know me, BOSS. According to Cate, I'm just a dumb jock male chauvinist pig who can’t keep it in his pants and doesn’t give a crap what happens to my teammates. Such a screwup, I’m constantly surprised I can walk and chew gum at the same time, ya know.”

Gibbs reached over and head slapped him.

Damn it, Tony was so fed up with this stupid habit Gibbs had restarted last year on that case of the corpse in the 314-gallon external fuel tank jettisoned from an F-14 Tomcat. Tony had told him in no uncertain terms when first recruited and Gibbs first tried that shit with him that he wouldn’t tolerate it and he’d respected his wishes. Now, suddenly with the newbies on the team and needed to be seen as the omnipotent commander, the elective mute had started it up again. Tony might laugh it off, say it was a sign of Gibbs’ affection, but it humiliated him, nevertheless. It made him feel incompetent and insignificant. Yet another sign that it might be time to look at transferring to a new team.

“Awesome come back, Boss,” he said sardonically.

Shooting him a poisonous glare, Gibbs replied, “So if you are so professional, DiNozzo, explain about the shit ya pulled on McGee with the alien mask and the magnet? Ever heard of contaminating a crime scene?” the supervisory special agent drawled with heavy irony. “Not the time to be playing juvenile pranks on your team members.”

“Aw, gee, what was I thinking?” Tony snarked, adopting a faux horrified expression al a Macauley Culkin, open-mouthed in dismay, his hands on his cheeks before becoming deadly serious as he defended himself. 

“By that stage, it wasn’t exactly a crime scene, Gibbs. Captain Barnett had been located and we were waiting on the forensics from the burnt-out cabin. Abby had already blackmailed McGee into taking a massive amount of unnecessary forensic evidence from the site to confirm her aliens made the crop circles theory. We had a surplus of trace evidence. While we were waiting around for Abby to determine if Captain Newell’s body was in the fire, Abby had her ‘Timmy’ searching the cornfield for additional data for HER alien investigation which had nothing to do with the missing pilot.”

He paused for breath, scowling before he said, “She was caught up trying to prove that aliens had created the crop circles. I was just trying to make a point with the probationary field agent that he was wasting valuable NCIS time and equipment gathering information which was non-work related. The truth is, he was carrying out unauthorised work because Abbs had bribed him by promising to show him her newest tattoo. I thought it might work better than a head slap, Boss. But you are right, I should have written him up instead.”

“Why didn’t you? You didn’t have a problem doing it with Cate,” Gibbs retorted, not appearing shocked or angry about Abby conducting her own investigations on NCIS dime. Tony was disappointed but not truly surprised by his attitude, Abby was his favourite after all.

Shrugging, he told Gibbs candidly, “Because if I had, your favourite forensic lab rat would have been in a whole heap of trouble. Abby would have been suspended if not worse and that would have pissed you off, but you’d probably have called in a marker or two and had it swept under the carpet.”

They exchanged a look and Tony saw that Gibbs didn’t disagree with his assessment of the situation, and it emboldened him to continue speaking his mind.

“I have extraordinarily little credibility as your senior field agent as it is and we both know who you’d have sided with, if I’d written her and it wouldn’t be me, even though I was in the right. You not backing me up would have seen any remaining influence I had over the junior agents fly out the window and I would have been as effective as a eunuch at an orgy, so I made a decision to take a more creative approach to train and discipline them.”

Gibbs scowled. “Thought you and Abby were friends.”

Tony rolled his eyes; Gibbs didn’t get it. And what did that have to do with anything anyway. Was he just supposed to ignore it if she didn’t follow procedure or committed offences?

“We are friends, good friends but what Abby did was wrong on so many levels. Did you know that Ducky went into the lab to ask her to run a tox screen on a tissue sample he’d taken from an exhumed sailor from Arlington?” When he saw all the evidence that she’d coerced McGee into collecting for her ‘research project’ strewn all over the lab he thought she was overwhelmed and being overworked. He told her his case would wait a few more days.”

Gibbs huffed irritably. “I know about the case, DiNozzo. The victim died 36 years ago. It was a cold case.”

Tony rolled his eyes although Gibbs was scowling as he drove in his usually cavalier fashion, so he probably didn’t notice. “Maybe it wasn’t a current one, Boss but it was still a case nevertheless and every single one deserves our full attention and best efforts, regardless of how old it is. Juxtapose that case with Abby was trying to prove that aliens made crop circles and tell me that what she did was okay.”

Gibbs didn’t say anything, and Tony pressed his point home. “Ducky didn’t know that she wasn’t working on a real case, but she sure as hell did. Abs should've put her crap aside…well, she shouldn’t have been running it at all. She should have sent it off to a colleague who investigates that short of paranormal shit, but she didn’t.”

The senior field agent took a deep breath and stated flatly, “She. Screwed. The. Pooch”, placing a period after each word, the staccato delivery of the sentence intended to convey his absolute conviction to his superior.

“Still don’t get why you have such a bee in your bonnet about it, Special Agent DiNozzo,” Gibbs said, using his formal designation and making it clear to him who he would have sided with if it had come down to a choice.

“Because I’ve seen cases get thrown out of court because of improprieties in the handling and analysis of evidence. I reported one forensic scientist back when I was a Homicide detective for mishandling evidence and letting a killer go free. At the end of the day, our sworn duty is to the victims of crime,” Tony avowed, disappointed that it should need to be said at all to the supervisory senior agent of the MCRT.

Now, as they started on the second half of the journey, having stopped briefly so that Gibbs could load up on caffeine, Tony wondered if he should be reconsidering Tobias Fornell’s offer of a job at the FBI. He was growing terribly weary of Gibbs’ favouritism and his interference in Tony’s ability to be an effective senior field agent. Junior agents made mistakes, but it was how those mistakes were dealt with which determined if lesson were learnt and the inexperienced juniors developed into better agents. 

Part 3

Director Morrow looked at Probationary Agent Timothy McGee sitting on the other side of the conference room table. His assessment of the young man who he’d had cause to observe since he’d been assigned to the DC office was that the probationary agent who was looking a bit pasty-faced frequently vacillated between appearing to be terrified of his own shadow (or Gibbs) and vexingly smug. Ordinarily, Tom wouldn’t have a great deal of interaction with such a newly minted agent as Timothy McGee but several factors meant that the director had more opportunities to watch him and draw his conclusions about the agent who’ only officially joined the MCRT three weeks ago. 

Unlike many newly appointed probies, McGee had been hanging around the DC office as a TAD, as well as doing computer searches looking for Gibbs’ nemesis Ari Haswari for almost a year. Of course, the other factor related to his familiarity with the young man was that SECNAV had taken a personal interest in McGee since he’d been hired, not all that surprising as his father was an Admiral in the United States Navy, as was Agent McGee’s grandfather. Tom wasn’t sure if Admiral John McGee had explicitly requested SECNAV look out for his son or if it was just the old boys' network in play. Nonetheless he’d been quick to inform Morrow who McGee was, back when he’d first applied to be an agent.

As he picked up a file, clicking the remote control which would record audio and video of this interview, Tom knew that he probably couldn’t kick the probationary agent out of the agency, which was his preferred option given the absolute debacle that transpired during the case with the Marine Corps pilot. Termination was how he’d normally proceed under these circumstances if he was dealing with any other probie who didn’t have the political connections of the McGee family. That said, while Tom may not be able to toss him out on his butt, he was damn well going to ensure the credulous young man received the biggest fright of his life, not to mention he intended on making Timothy McGee’s life a living hell for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, it would be the wake- up call the fool needed and if it wasn’t, then being transferred to San Diego should do the trick.

Sighing fatalistically, he started the interview. Clearing his throat, Tom stated, “The purpose of this interview is to investigate a number of irregularities alleged to have taken place during the investigation into the disappearance of Marine helicopter pilot Captain Todd Newell, and the co-pilot, Captain Patrick Barnett. The interview is being videoed in the presence of the Head of NCIS Legal Department, Joseph M. Landers, Head of Human Resources, Genevieve Taylor, NCIS Director Thomas Morrow and Special Agent Timothy McGee. 

McGee looked a little concerned, but Tom didn’t think that the true gravity of the situation had hit him…well not yet. He might expect his father would be able to sweep this under the rug, although, the director suspected that McGee possessed a robust opinion of his academic achievements and his computer prowess. So, in turn, he may be clueless that John McGee influenced his career prospects, albeit explicitly or indirectly. Still, Morrow couldn’t help playing devil’s advocate. If McGee wanted to give his father the middle-finger over expectations he’d follow the two previous generations and enlist in the Navy, why not apply for a job at the FBI or other federal agency that wasn’t under the auspices of the Navy? At least, if he were in McGee’s shoes, it’s what Morrow would have done, rather than applying to the significantly smaller agency that was associated with the navy?

Tom also speculated that the probationary special agent may be under an illusion that Gibbs would just be able to make this whole situation go away. It was a distinct possibility since Gibbs appeared to be Teflon™ coated, in that no shit ever seemed to stick to him but if that was the probie’s rationale, he was in for quite the nasty surprise. These transgressions being addressed at this interview were impossible to brush aside because of the nature of the case. It was a high-profile case which inevitably attracted a lot of attention from the media and therefore the bureaucrats. Gibbs could try to pull strings, but that wasn’t going to work, not this time.

Tom decided to get the interview underway. He took a sip of his coffee before stating, “Probationary Special Agent McGee, we have your case report pertaining to the investigation into a missing Marine Corps helicopter pilot, Captain Todd Newell, and the co-pilot, Captain Patrick Barnett, who was later located but hadn’t taken part in the training flight. Can you walk us through what happened when you arrived at the scene of the downed helicopter?” 

McGee eyed the various individuals, deciding that Genevieve Taylor was the most sympathetic person in the room and as he began his account directed his focus towards the sylph-like figure of the manager of the HR department.

“Um…well when we got to the scene the helicopter was standing in the middle of what appeared to be a crop circle. It instantly became apparent that the crime scene, as we assumed it to be at that point, had already been contaminated by the Marines who are already investigating the scene. They’d established that the helicopter still had 60% of its fuel supply and was undamaged. It was at that point that Colonel Teague ordered his men to stand down.”

McGee looked nervously around the room at the men and woman listening to his account and reached for a glass of water, sipping it slowly. Morrow felt he was using the activity to try to collect his thoughts. 

The probationary agent began speaking again. “So, the Colonel reported that the helicopter took off at 2300 for a night proficiency flight but that the flight controller lost the signal 10 minutes into the flight. They were not notified of the helicopter's location by the local sheriff until just after sunrise.”

He paused again before explaining what had happened when NCIS assume responsibility for examining the scene. “So, the boss…um I mean, Agent Gibbs handed out assignments. He told Agent DiNozzo to sketch and shoot the scene, Cate…um Agent Todd to bag and tag evidence from the helicopter, and he directed me to lay out a search grid of the cornfield. At that point, a Marine helicopter flew overhead as Teague’s men launched an air search for the missing Marines. 

Shifting around in his seat, McGee looked down at the wooden veneer of the conference room table, seeming to find it fascinating as he said, “So Gibbs talked with the Colonel about what was going on. Then Colonel Teague handed him a camera memory card which contained overhead photos of the site. Gibbs passed the photo card to me and told me to send it to Abby. Which I did before going back to the grid search, as ordered.”

Morrow frowned. “But you didn’t follow your supervisor’s orders, did you, Probationary Agent McGee? In fact, you questioned Supervisory Special Agent Gibbs,” Morrow stated flatly as McGee jerked in surprise. 

Honestly, Tom reflected wryly, McGee shouldn’t be so shocked that they knew. It wasn’t just NCIS who were present, there were also Marines to bear witness to what was going down. It shouldn't come as a surprise that most, if not all the Marines took an extremely grim view of insubordination, especially when it was a brand spanking new probationary field agent calling out a superior who was also an ex-Marine to boot. Damned straight they’d sit up and take notice. Mind you it wasn’t so much McGee’s insubordination that the director was focused on at this stage. It was what had motivated the probie to protest about what would seem to be a reasonable the order that Morrow was interested in.

“Why did you question Gibbs’ directive?”

The probie looked concerned and Tom could see beads of sweat accumulating on his forehead and upper lip as McGee started to panic. He finally seemed to realise he was in a heap of trouble as he tried to justify arguing with the senior supervisory agent. 

He blurted out, “Well the Colonel and Gibbs agreed to keep the whole disappearance of the Marines and the crop circles from the media because they wanted to avoid mass hysteria about them being abducted by aliens. So, I just thought that giving Abby…um our forensic scientist, Abby Sciuto the photos of the crop circles might be too distracting because she’s so obsessed with the paranormal.”

He looked at Genevieve and shrugged, “But Gibbs ignored my concerns, so I sent them to her to examine then and then went back my grid search.”

Morrow clarified the situation. “You are saying that you knew all about Dr Sciuto’s obsession with the paranormal, including alien crop circles. Is that correct?”

McGee looked relieved to be on what he assumed to be safer ground. Little did he know, Morrow thought cynically.

“Everyone knows that Abby’s into the paranormal,” he replied with a shrug. “When we were dating, she would bore me to tears with her cockamamie theories.”

Genevieve Taylor gave him the benefit of her soulful brown eyes as she smiled at him. “So, what happened when you sent Dr Sciuto the photos from the camera memory card, Probationary Agent McGee?”

McGee flushed and appeared to get flustered. Tom wondered if it was due to the stunningly beautiful HR manager’ charismatic personality or perhaps he was starting to get an inkling of the dangerous waters he was trying to navigate.

When he rather immodestly boasted, “Just as I expected, Abby…um I mean Dr Sciuto was extremely excited about the apparent crop circle and being in a position to carry out tests on it,” Morrow realised it was Taylor’s charms that had him all hot and bothered. He quickly smothered a smile. McGee was trying to impress her, but then he wouldn’t be the first impressionable male to be affected by the HR manager’s good looks nor to underestimate her formidable intellect, either.

“She was visibly distracted, just as I’d predicted,” McGee smirked flirting clumsily with the mocha-skinned woman.

Letting Genevieve take over, he nodded subtly for her to continue the questioning. After all, she was doing an excellent job, so why stop what was working so well.

Nodding imperceptibly, acknowledging of his directive, she said, “In what way was she distracted?”

“Well…ah you know, she was jumping up and down like the Energizer Bunny and wouldn’t let me get back to my work.”

As he watched his /HR manager finesse the interview, Tom thought about McGee’s psychological evaluation before being hired on as an NCIS agent. In it he’d been described as introverted with an inferiority complex who exhibited marked passive-aggressive traits. Dr Joyner had also observed, per McGee’s FLETC instructors that he had difficulty coping with domineering individuals.

The psychologist noted he possessed an almost pathological need to please strong dominant females, which she’d red-flagged as posing a security risk because it made him vulnerable to coercion, blackmailed, being turned into a double agent or otherwise persuaded to look the other way when it came to handling classified intel. if he was directed to by an alpha-typed female. It was Dr Joyner professional assessment that these factors precluded Timothy McGee being given a security clearance or permitted to access sensitive data., recommending his unsuitability to be employed as a federal agent.

Her recommendation had been ignored. SECNAV had hired McGee anyway, and was given access to classified data. Now, they were, trying to figure where to go from here. It was only his third case as a field agent and the psychologist’s greatest fears had already been realised. Morrow scowled - this was not good!

The HR manager leaned forward as she responded to the comment regarding the forensic scientist. “Dr Sciuto does become quite passionate about things at times,” she observed dryly.

McGee shook his head, “I swear, sometimes she acts like someone who has no background in science, whatsoever. She didn’t like the results of the tests she ran on the crop circles that failed to prove that it had been made by non-terrestrial methods rather than being man-made. So instead of accepting the results like a rational scientist she just repeated the entire battery of tests a second time, hoping that she’d get the results she wanted if she tried again” he ranted. 

Morrow wondered if he was criticising Abby Sciuto because he was carried away by Taylor’s charm, he was trying to cover his ass, or he was genuinely irritated by her pig-headedness. Whatever his motivation, he still raised a great point. How can you believe in forensic science if you reject evidence when it comes back with a finding that doesn’t support your theory? How can you call yourself a scientist?”

Looking over at Director Morrow, Genevieve was asking him if he wanted to take over the interview, but he indicated nonverbally that she had his approval to continue. She nodded her understanding and continued to ask McGee questions. 

“What I don’t understand is why Dr Sciuto was still investigating the crop circles?” Taylor asked, looking puzzled. Tom mental congratulated her on her acting ability.

McGee frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“Wasn’t it was established fairly early into the investigation that the co-pilot, Captain Barnett had been located and that the pilot, Captain Newell had intentionally flown to Smoky Corners at the behest of his brother. Why then did the crop circle continue to hold such a focus on the investigation?”

McGee shrugged noncommittally. “Well because Abby was convinced that the crop circles were connected to the case and also, she wanted to get access to the classified investigation that the Air Force had carried out 9 years before our investigation about prior crop circles in Smoky Corners.”

“But the Marines discovered the cabin fire and there was reason enough to suspect that Captain Newell might have been caught inside and perish. Surely that was a more crucial direction to focus the forensic resources rather than investigating a possible alien abduction?”

McGee nodded emphatically. “I know, right. That’s why I didn’t think it was a good idea to give her the photos in the first place. I knew she was gonna get distracted,” he said self-righteously.

“And you were right, Probationary Agent McGee. That’s precisely what happened,” the HR manager flattered him lavishly as he flushed at the praise from the beautiful female.

Director Morrow had heard enough. Genevieve had done an excellent job but now it was time to get to the nitty-gritty of the situation. He spoke firmly, “So here’s what I don’t understand, McGee. You rightly point out that it was not the best course of action to pass on those photos of the ‘crop circles surrounding the Marine helicopter to Dr Sciuto as she became very distracted by them. So please can you explain to me, why did you not only take an unnecessary number of photos, samples of the corn stalks right down to the roots and soil samples so she could carry out tests, but you also agreed to carry out additional tests.”

Seeing that McGee was about to vehemently deny that accusation, the NCIS director gave him his patented glare. “Are you stating that you weren't scanning the cornfield with a magnetometer because Dr Sciuto told you she needed additional information about the crop circles?” 

Tim opened his mouth and ended up closing it again before he finally admitted reluctantly that he had been using the magnetometer to scan the field, per Abby’s instructions.

Morrow stared at him, “So why would you do that? You participated in her plan to carry out unnecessary and unauthorised forensic testing, the cost of which would be borne by NCIS and ultimately by the American taxpayers. All to satisfy some highly dubious whacked-out theories about aliens by Sciuto, which you’ve already admitted you believed did not have any scientific validity. I would like to know why you were complicit.”

The probationary agent looked annoyed at having painted himself into a corner with his previous statements. Right about now, he was probably realising he’d been set up by the lovely manager of Human Resources. She had led him around by his dick so to speak, praising him repeatedly and he fell for it, amply demonstrating why he was such a risk to national security.

Finally, getting his act together, Tim parried, “Well I expressed my doubt about the advisability of giving Abby the aerial photos taken by the Marines to the Boss and he ignored me.”

Morrow raised a metaphoric eyebrow and said, “Yes he did. But he didn’t tell you to gather unnecessary trace and photographic evidence plus carry out forensic tests that by your own admission, you knew weren’t related directly to the investigation, did he?”

McGee was forced to admit that he didn’t but countered by saying, “But I’m just the probationary agent.”

The director stared at him. “And if you were completely clueless about the fact that the evidence Dr Sciuto demanded you collect for her was crucial to the case, I’d probably be willing to accept that excuse at face value. However, as you are so very fond of informing everyone, you have a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins plus, a master’s degree in computer forensics at MIT.

“You knew full well that Dr Sciuto was conducting redundant forensic tests and you failed to report it to Gibbs or me. Instead, you became an active participant in her scheme. Why did you do that?”

Looking like a kid who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, (which he had been) McGee sat seething as he glared at the other people in the room. Joe Landers, the NCIS head of Legal shook his head, taking pity on the young agent for the mess he was in.

He said mildly, “You know, your best bet is to come clean, Probationary Agent McGee.” 

Landers decided to give him another piece of sage if unsolicited advice. “The thing is, that we already know the reason why you agreed to take part in Dr Sciuto’s scheme to carry out superfluous forensic tests to satisfy her personal curiosity, Mr McGee.”

Tim corrected him reflexively, “Um…Special Agent McGee.”

Tom Morrow looked quite forbidding as he told him, “That’s not a given, McGee. You are a probationary agent, which makes it much less complicated to terminate your employment. The head of the legal department is advising you is that your best option would be to admit your culpability if you have any desire to keep working here and throw yourself on our mercy.

“No doubt, you expect that your brilliance with computer science and technology makes you too valuable an asset for you to lose your job, but you’d be dead wrong about that,” he warned the livid looking probie.

“Agents first and foremost must be incorruptible, which means they should not be susceptible to coercion, blackmail or dishonesty. You, McGee, failed miserably to rise to those standards which we expect of our agents when tested and this was only your third case as a fully-fledged member of the major case response team.”

McGee squared off his shoulders and jutted out his jaw stubbornly, his nonverbal body language telegraphing his belligerence before he seemed to cave from the inside out. It was like a balloon which suddenly had all the air let out of it, Tom thought trivially. 

“Fine!” Tim blurted out impetuously. “I told Abby not to get carried away, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Wanted a whole bunch of stuff… trace evidence that wasn’t pertinent to the case but Abby insisted it was important. She offered to show me her new tattoo if I got samples for her,” he said angrily before becoming pouty. “I don’t get what the big deal is? Why am I being singled out here?”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tom smothered a grin. Unspoken was the sentiment, ‘it’s not fair,’ and also the foot stamping that a kid might try on before throwing themselves on the ground in an epic tantrum of wailing, tears, not to mention the fist and foot pounding the ground.

He told him sternly, “Let’s start with your last question first. You aren’t being singled out and I think it is a bit presumptuous of you to leap to that conclusion. It speaks to either a victim mentality or a massive superiority complex. I wonder which?” he asked rhetorically since he didn’t expect to receive an answer.

Steepling his fingers unconsciously, he continued. “Just so we’re clear, Dr Sciuto is in a heap of trouble for misappropriating government equipment and resources for her personal use, plus the serious matter of the coercion of a federal agent. Then there is the investigation which will be taking place into whether her unauthorised use of the forensic lab and purloining of an agent to run her ‘additional tests’ impeded the investigation in any way or indeed interfered with any other cases.”

Morrow paused long enough to evaluate the truculent probationary agent in front of him before continuing his scathing dressing down. “Does that make you feel less persecuted, McGee or less “special” since you know that Dr Sciuto is also facing serious consequences for her part in this inexcusable situation?” He retorted cynically, gesturing with air quotes to emphasise the word special before he told him honestly, “The truth is, that you aren’t anywhere near as indispensable or extraordinary as you may have been led to believe.

“Frankly, if your father wasn’t Admiral John McGee, whose own father was also an admiral in the US Navy, then your career as an NCIS federal agent would already be history.”

Interrupting Morrow angrily, McGee snapped, “My father had nothing to do with my career at NCIS. I succeeded without any help from him, unlike other people I know.”

Genevieve leaned forward, frowning at him as she addressed him sharply. “A serious accusation to make, Probationary Agent McGee. To whom are you referring?”

McGee finally seemed to have caught a clue and stammered, “Um nothing.”

Morrow grinned evilly at his two managers. “According to office scuttlebutt, I believe McGee is under the misapprehension that Special Agent DiNozzo’s father bought him a college degree in Phys. Ed. and a job because he is too stupid to have earned either.” 

Landers and Taylor shared an amused chuckle at the notion of Anthony DiNozzo Senior wanting to help a son (who he’d abandoned at age twelve) with a college degree. Not to mention assist him with a career in civil service (a vocation the so-called business tycoon despised) which were ludicrous, even if he wasn’t totally estranged from his only offspring.

They shifted their focus to regard McGee with expressions akin to pity as Morrow proceeded to educate the luckless probationary field agent about the facts of life.

“I’m not going to dignify your ill-informed notion regarding the Senior Field Agent with a response. However, regarding your claim that your career has nothing to do with your father, I can assure you, this egregious procedural lapse of yours would see a mere mortal such as your immediate superior, DiNozzo or Todd facing immediate dismissal and the end of their law enforcement careers. You are getting a chance to redeem yourself only because of your father and grandfather’s stellar navy careers.”

McGee was furious. “Well, you should fire DiNozzo for contaminating evidence then. He put an alien mask and a magnet in the cornfield where I was scanning to prank me. Why isn’t he in trouble?” he demanded petulantly.

_Ah yes, there was that passive-aggressiveness that Dr Joyner had flagged in his initial psychological assessment, Tom thought cynically, exchanging a glance with the HR manager._

“That will be investigated if it is deemed to have affected the case,” Morrow responded neutrally. “Although as the evidence you were collecting (by your own admission) was for Dr Sciuto’s personal research which was unauthorised, I question if it can be regarded as contamination. Meanwhile, let’s discuss the consequences of you failing to follow procedure.”  
  
He eyed McGee sternly. “A civilian was assaulted on this case. I’m concerned that if we hadn’t wasted manpower and forensic testing trying to prove aliens were responsible for creating crop circles instead of focusing on the case, maybe the young woman might not have been hurt.”

Tapping his fingers on the table absentmindedly as he gathered his thoughts, Tom continued, “So, here’s what is going to happen, Probationary Special Agent. You’ll be reassigned as a special liaison with the DC Metro Police Department, specifically to the Vice Squad since you seem so interested in body tattoos. I’m sure that they will be able to utilise your expertise,” he said with a straight face, “and indulge your curiosity for inkwork. Perhaps you could offer to show them yours, you know the one you acquired to impress Dr Sciuto, so she’d agree to go out with you.”

McGee looked poleaxed but remained silent. Morrow wasn’t sure if it was because he was truly dumbstruck or due to a modicum of self-preservation. If that was the case, it was better late than never, the director mused sardonically. If it was shock that the director knew about his tattoo, then the probationary agent wasn’t as smart as he liked to think he was. DiNozzo, as per protocol had updated McGee’s personnel file about distinguishing marks (including tattoos) for the purposes of identification in the advent of an agent dying. 

“Also, effective immediately, I’m suspending your security clearance for an indefinite period. During your reassignment, you’ll be required to attend mandatory counselling sessions twice a week with the NCIS in-house psychologist. You will explore your motivations as to why you failed to follow procedure and allowed yourself to be coerced into aid Sciuto in conducting unnecessary evidence testing, despite freely acknowledging it was not necessary.

“You’ll need to satisfy Dr Lopez that you no longer pose a risk to the national security of the United States before your intel clearance is reinstated. A security clearance is mandatory for permanent assignent onto a team or to be a cyber-security agent. Without that clearance, your career options will be seriously limited at this or any other federal agency.” 

Morrow noted with a sense of grim satisfaction that McGee turned white as a sheet as he began to deliver his disciplinary consequences. By the time he’d finished though, McGee was looking a very decided shade of green and he suspected he was in danger of losing his lunch. Well good! The probationary agent was being cut a break that few of his colleagues would be offered, so Morrow was determined that an extremely harsh wake-up call be sent.

If he wasn’t totally satisfied with McGee’s reliability after completing his counselling, the director was determined to ensure that he ended up working somewhere completely innocuous, like ending up managing digital evidence records or permanently assigned to the pool of general agents (many of whom were FLETC newbies) who were called out on routine matters, effectively doing scut work when extra bodies were required. Either way, if he couldn’t be trusted, Timothy McGee wouldn’t be exposed to data which required a security clearance of anything affecting national security as he had access to on the MCRT. This time it had been something that hadn’t endangered national security for which Morrow was grateful, and he was going to make damned sure there wouldn’t be a next time 

Even if McGee did manage to earn back his security clearance and it was a pretty big if, the director planned to transfer him to the San Diego office, under Leon Vance’s eagle eye. That way’ he’d be far away from Dr Sciuto’s influence, supposing she retained her job, of course. Which was not in any way a certainty right now.

She was in a shitload of trouble and not even Gibbs would be able to wave a wand and just sweep it under the rug this time. She would face significant consequences even if SecNav wouldn’t let him terminate her contract!

Part 4

Tim McGee looked around at the positively primitive cyber capabilities with a mixture of distaste and disbelief. Even NCIS had much better than this crappy workplace and he had it on good authority that NCIS was outdated by comparison to other federal agencies such as the FBI. The DC Metropolitan Police Department was positively archaic, though. It was a disgrace the conditions he was expected to work under here.

Since obviously cops weren’t anywhere near as smart as federal agents, Tim figured that it probably didn’t affect them all that much having such inferior technology to work with. For someone like him with his MIT background however, it was akin to expecting Vincent Van Gogh to work with a paint-by-numbers set. He felt it was an insult to his skills!

Honestly, this whole situation of him being assigned as a liaison to Metro PD at Vice was completely stupid and a waste of his valuable time and resources. Bottom line was that he was being punished for wanting to see Abby’s new tattoo and what red-blooded male could resist an offer like that. It was just extremely unfair that he’d landed in so much trouble when the tattoo in question had turned out to be a complete non-event.

How was he supposed to know it was on her damned ankle when she’d talked him into gathering evidence? She’d mislead him into thinking it was somewhere intimate like her ass or her breast. It should be obvious to everyone that IF he’d known it was a tatt on her ankle, there’s no way he’d have been tempted to collect all those dumb samples for her. Unfortunately, somehow everyone at NCIS found out and blabbed to the Metro cops who revelled humiliating him about it So not fair.

Still, compared with the disciplinary actions imposed on Abby, he’d probably gotten off lightly, he supposed. Abby had been ordered to pay for all of the unnecessary tests she’d run and since she’d run all of them twice, the total cost for her forensic curiosity to be satisfied about the fake crop circles created not by aliens but by the residents of Smoky Corners had turned into a huge amount of money that she now owed the agency. Plus, on top of being hit with a considerable bill for running unauthorised forensic tests, they’d also imposed an additional hefty fine for her misappropriation of government property and resources (his and her time on the agency’s dime plus using the forensic equipment) and she’d been demoted several pay grades. All in all, it had been a costly financial folly.

However, probably the worst sanction as far as Abby was concerned was that she had to submit all her work for auditing at the end of every working day. One more mistake and her contract would be terminated. So yeah, things could be worse for him, McGee conceded rather grudgingly, not that he felt that his reassignment had been warranted of course.

Sighing, he stared at the foot and a half high pile of photos that he needed to scan into the database he was setting up of tattoos. The Metro Police Department database consisted of six main categories, known sex workers, suspects of crimes, individuals convicted of crimes, underage runaways and missing people known to have tattoos and also a category cataloguing tattoo artists’ ink art and styles. McGee had written a computer program so that when dead bodies turned up which were unidentified and they had tattoos, they’d be able to identify if the ink work had been done by any of the local tattoo artists or if the tattoo matched one already recorded as belonging to one of their regulars. They also planned on including a category for prison tattoos and gang tattoos but for now, attached to the Vice department, McGee was focusing on these groups.

This was the last lot of photos that he needed to scan and then it would be done. It was ridiculous that he had to physically scan hundreds of photos – it was an appalling waste of his talents and he resented that there wasn’t some techie or admin assistant that could carry out the scut work for him. Still, he was hopeful that at the end of today that this project would be over and done with and he could return to NCIS. Honestly, if he never saw another tattoo for as long as he lived, it would still be much too soon. Tatts on girls who had hot sexy bodies were one thing, but a lot of the tattoos on the older prostitutes who worked the streets were just pitiful; displayed on saggy skin that just made his balls shrivel up in revulsion. Of course, the males didn’t do anything for him, even the young ripped ones to be honest.

It had honestly shocked him that unlike the movies and television shows, most of the sex workers weren’t hot sexy types as portrayed in movies and TV. Even with the ones who were pretty new to the game, many had track marks up and down their arms and rotten teeth courtesy of drug-use that he thought was a turn-off. Lots of the females were old and worn down, who, in the harsh daylight looked like they could have been his mother’s age (even if they were years younger) which made him feel decidedly icky. Imagine paying to have sex with someone whowas someone’s mother - euwww it made him want to throw up in his mouth just thinking about it.

McGee supposed that at night, with makeup plastered on their faces, the old hookers who’d been on the game for decades probably fooled a lot of the johns but he wondered if they’d been conned once they were naked and the ravages of time and hard living were revealed. But as squicked out by the older whores as he was, it was usually the men McGee felt the most antipathy for, dressing in outrageously skin-tight gear, wearing makeup and mincing around like a bunch of carousel ponies. Not that he was homophobic – he'd had a gay roommate when he was at MIT, but Armand played baseball and like to rappel off cliffs in his down time. There was none of that overt in-your-face sexuality like the so-called twinks and queens he’d encountered and who liked to taunt him when he went out on the streets with the cops. Plus, there were the transgenders and the drag queens, they kinda made him feel queasy too, especially when they propositioned him.

Vice was well named – he felt like he’d entered a world scarily reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno every time he went into the red-light districts. He honestly thought it was a crass obscenity that ought to be bulldozed. Tim couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to work in such a cesspool of corruptness, misery, and suffering as a sex worker, a social worker OR a vice cop. All of it made him throw up if he thought too much about it but honestly, it was the teenage prostitutes (boys and girls) that had horrified him the most.

Their emaciated bodies, many of them looking prepubescent and their bruises and contusions were testaments to the violence they endured living and working on the streets of DC. Plus, a good proportion of them were drug addicts and worse, they were frequent victims of sexual assault or worse. Twice since his deployment, there were horrific murders of these tragic runaways. It made him sick to his stomach.

When he first encountered runaways, he tried hard to persuade them to go home as the streets were no place for them. Murder and assault rates were horrific for sex workers. 

Yeah, he got that teenagers didn’t like to have rules imposed on them (he’d been a teenager not too long ago) but he tried to explain to them that the upside of going back home was they’d be safe and have a warm bed and food. Several flipped him off, well they were a lot cruder than that, suggesting he do things that weren’t physically possible unless you were a contortionist. One boy, Kasey and a teenage girl with cold dead eyes (whose name he didn’t know) told him harrowing and yet surely highly embellished stories of what they’d run away from at home that left him puking his guts up. When he’d tried to find the pair of teens a bit later to verify what they’d said, they’d gone to ground.

Lolly (which she said was short for Lolita) was a nineteen-year-old prostitute who looked around twelve and acted as a den mother to the younger kids, told him. “They’re gone, Fed. They’re afraid you’ll try to force them to go home.”

“Well, surely it would have to be better for them than this place,” he said, looking around, unable to disguise his distaste.

She’d laughed briefly with world-weary misanthropy that would have been misplaced in someone three times her age. In a kid who wasn’t even old enough to drink alcohol, it was utterly vile and obscene. “You didn’t listen did ya? It might not be safe here but it’s better than where they were. You're a real dumbass, you know that? Life is fucked up. 

“People like you hate and fear anyone different," she pointed her finger at him. “We disgust your kind. You fear that our taint might rub off on you or worry that you might catch something off us. But your biggest fear is that you’ll end up like us because on some level you understand that once upon a time, WE WERE YOU. But while you all fear us, we accept and support each other – we don’t judge or think we’re better than anyone else.”

Lolita (and even Tim wasn’t naïve enough to think it was the name she’d been born with) paused for breath and he noticed that while she looked like a prepubescent girl, her eyes were ancient and filled with such anger and hurt that made it difficult for him to meet her gaze. But for the grace of God this could be his little sister, Sarah.

Finally, she continued her harsh dressing down, “These kids know the score. And despite all of the discomfort, hate and violence we provoke in people, rich entitled cisgender types who think no matter how awful it is here, that we’d be better off, safer going back home where you wouldn’t have to see us, we’ll look out for each other. Your sort knows fuck-all about what goes on behind closed doors and you don’t care. You don’t have to watch us being raped and beaten by our drug-addicted mother’s boyfriends or her pimp or her dealer. If we were at home, you wouldn’t have to watch us live in fear of our lives in a nice normal home with domestic violence and chronic abuse."

McGee couldn't meet her eyes, knowing she spoke the truth and it made him ashamed and anxious in equal measure. 

"You and your kind,” Lolly said, her voice dripping with disdain, “You don’t know jack-shit about us, Mr Fed." 

Lolita looked as if she’d finally finished castigating him but suddenly, she lashed out at him furiously, likely seeing in him all the people who walked away from them instead of reaching out to help. “Besides, some of us don’t have a family or a home to go, even a shitty one. What about those homeless vets up the road, like Crazy Christos and Generally MacArthur?”

They volunteered to fight for their country and now they can’t stand to be inside, and they think they’re back fighting in the war again, so they get shit-faced most of the time to forget.

Yet, for some reason people look down on them and treat them like trash. They don’t have anywhere to go but we are their family,” she scolded him. “Talk about being ungrateful and yet you want us to go home - because out of sight out of mind.”

Lolly’s bitterness at the world in general and her animosity directed at him since he’d foolishly displayed his arrogance by telling her that he knew what was better for her than she did, along with the harsh truths she’d expressed left him reeling with wildly conflicting feelings. Tim recognised he was experiencing what psychologists labelled as cognitive dissonance where an individual held two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values; or took part in an action that went against those beliefs then experienced intense psychological stress because of it.

However, just because he knew why he was feeling so much anxiety and stress it, didn’t mean he was ready to do the hard work entailed in resolving his dissonance. It was tough and uncomfortable to change long-held beliefs and values, much easier to just avoid the situation completely so his beliefs weren’t being constantly challenged. Which was why he’d dreamed up the whole database project for tattoos to avoid having to be out on the street amongst people like Lolly and he was thankful his dissonance had pretty-much disappeared.

Mind you, he hadn’t got off scot-free. Yeah, he avoided confronting his cognitive dissonance but there was always a reckoning. He’d had to catalogue photos of crazy people who’d had their faces tattooed which was confronting but nowhere near as much as having his beliefs constantly challenged.

Then the Vice detectives pointed out that he’d neglected to include and catalogue genital tattoos. Naturally, he’d thought they were hazing him, which they took great delight in doing at every opportunity, but the horror of horrors, they weren’t joking. Some dumbasses _wanted_ to have their privates inked. Good Lord, he could not believe that there was anyone idiotic enough to do that.

Having his butt tattooed last year so Abby would go out with him had been a memorable but a damned painful experience. That had effing hurt, so he couldn't even begin to contemplate how much more painful it would be to have genital inking carried out. So, he deliberately tried not to think about it, he’d rather focus on the future which involved him getting this ridiculous punishment over and done with so he could go back to the MCRT again.

As of today, when with any luck he finished loading those genital tattoos into the database, he’d be done with it and he could get back to being a field agent again at NCIS. Surely, he’d been punished enough; if he never saw another tattoo again it would be much too soon. Never again would he agree to ignore procedures so he could see Abby’s tatts no matter where on her body they happened to be. Pushing through the pile to get done with them, McGee tried hard to ignore the graphic pictures he was scanning. He was staying focused on the end goal of finishing up the database project.

Later on, when he reported to Lieutenant Kay Baker before he left that night that the Tattoo Identification Database was now fully operational, she smiled.

“Thank you, Probationary Special Agent McGee, that’s excellent news. I’ll also pass that along to Director Morrow. I’m sure he’ll be gratified to know that you have been making yourself useful. I’m optimistic that this project of yours will make it harder for sexual predators to get away with preying on our most vulnerable citizens, leaving no trace.”

McGee blushed at her fulsome praise before asking Lieutenant Baker if the NCIS director had indicated whether his TAD was close to being completed as he was anxious to return to the agency. The lieutenant smiled and McGee noted once again that the woman had a moderate overbite that wasn’t exactly attractive. He wondered for the umpteenth time why she didn’t do anything about it. Although his little sister Sarah would say that the lieutenant wasn’t exactly an oil painting, so he decided maybe she didn’t think it was worth the expense. 

"We have had some discussions about your assignment. He said that you haven’t completed your mandatory counselling sessions, so he was happy for you to continue here as a liaison for at least another month,” she said, trying to hide her grin at his obvious disappointment.

Tim suspected that he’d end up back on the streets and that was not something he was looking forward to. The daily parade of human misery, depravity and corruption of humanity was not something he was looking forward to revisiting. Plus, he’d found constantly being heckled and propositioned by the sex workers (male, female and he didn’t want to know what else) made him feel extremely uncomfortable. 

Seeing to read his mind, Lieutenant Baker told him, “I know you aren’t comfortable going out on patrol, Probationary Agent McGee. It can be quite confronting until you adjust and not everyone has the chops to work in Vice,” she said candidly. 

Even though she had just dissed him rather effectively he was too desperate not to go back on the street again to react with his usual belligerent attitude. He was just praying that she would cut him some slack. Maybe he could offer to defrag her hard drive. Hell, he’d do the whole damned department (twice) by standing on his head singing God Bless America in binary code if it kept him from going back out on the street with the uniforms.

As if reading his mind for a second time which was kind of freaky, but in truth wasn’t exactly difficult since he didn’t have a good poker face, she told him. “Detectives Bianca and Fujiwara have suggested that since you’ve done such a sterling job setting up the tattoo database, we should get you to set up a body piercings database too.”

McGee wondered how much time it would take to set up a database of ear piercing before he realised feeling slightly foolish that there were other facial piercings such as nose rings and eyebrow piercings and he thought, slightly squeamishly, some people got their tongue’s pierced too, although, he couldn’t imagine what would possess them to do that. When he had to wear braces when he was a teenager, he hated the way the metal braces affected the taste of his food. Anyway, if he could cope with genital tattoos, he’d surely be able to deal with a few pictures of tongue piercings. 

His main concern was that if he was going to be TAD to Metro PD Vice for another month at least, could he stretch out this latest assignment to last until it was time to go back to NCIS? Surely there weren’t that many items for the database, but maybe he could write a second program that could combine tattoos and piercings of sex workers, runaways, homeless vets and people with mental illnesses to help identify people who ended up in the city morgue as Jane/John Does. It was worth a shot.

He smiled back at the homely looking lieutenant and said, “It will be my pleasure, Lieutenant Baker.”

One week later, as Tim made the trek back from the grimly depressing city morgue, he was berating himself for his complete gullibility over the body piercings database he’d agreed to set up instead of going out on the streets with the unies. The ME for the MPD had invited him down to the morgue to share her post-mortem photos of some of the unusual piercings she’d encountered over the last nine years in the job and frankly, he wanted to bleach his brain of the images he’d seen. Talk about being traumatised.

If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out of going on patrol with the uniformed officers (and anyway as a federal agent, he should be working with the detectives, not the foot soldiers, surely) McGee should have been suspicious when the lieutenant mentioned the database had been suggested by her detectives. Teresa Bianca was okay if a little bit condescending to him (which was amusing, like she had anything to teach a federal agent) but Kenny Fujiwara was a gigantic nob-head and there was no way he’d go out of his way to do anything to help Tim. The dick was always smirking at him when he blushed tomato red if the drag queens propositioned him or the transgenders made lewd comments when he was around. 

If McGee had needed any validation that he’d been set up by the vice cop who thought he was hot stuff, it was confirmed when the ME, Doctor Suzanne Collier rang this morning to say that Fujiwara suggested that he’d want to view the current body she was autopsying. She said Kenny told her Tim had an interest in body piercing. Frankly, McGee wasn’t exactly leaping with joy about the invitation to view some pierced cadaver because he didn’t do well with gore and blood, but he was a federal agent and he didn’t want to look like a wimp. The Vice cops would never let him live it down if he opted out of the challenge, so he’d sucked it up and headed downtown. 

*********

**[Last warning – if you’re squeamish about intimate body parts and body piercing proceed at your own risk]**

Nothing could prepare him for the horrific spectacle that awaited him. The victim was male, not female as he’d mistakenly assumed (and he could hear Gibbs’ gruff voice in his head saying, ‘rule # 8 never assume, McGee,’ as he stared at the mutilated body on the autopsy slab. The victim was in his mid to late twenties, Tim estimated, and he was a male sex worker. The guy was cut, or he had been when he was alive, probably spent hours every week in a gym to have that physique. McGee noted uncomfortably that he lacked body hair and was also smooth-shaven features. He did have a mop of curly hair that looked like someone spent time highlighting it.

The dead victim made him feel uneasy, not that McGee had anything against gay people; there had been one in his FLETC class who sat in front of him in lecture who had sometimes partnered with Tim on assignments. Plus, he wasn't against males being well-groomed, he'd used his fair share of male cosmetic products since he’d been prone to dry skin and ragged cuticles since his early teens but knowing this man had sold his body for money made Tim feel uncomfortable. Maybe it was just that female prostitutes had been around since forever (everyone said it was the oldest profession in the world) and the media always portrayed them as having hearts of gold, despite being victims of poverty or drugs. 

Yet, Tim argued silently, the man lying on the autopsy slab had clearly spent a fair bit of time and money on his appearance, so he surely was selling his body for sex because he’d chosen to. He didn't look like he was an addict or gaunt from lack of food so he must have seen it as an easy way to earn money instead of getting a proper job. That the rookie agent didn’t even consider any other factors that might have influenced the victim’s choice of employment demonstrated his simplistic view of a complex situation. Despite his time out on the streets shadowing the Vice cops, McGee was still blind to the grim realities of how and why people ended up living on the streets.

As the probationary special agent looked at the beaten and broken corpse, a brutal testament about the amount of hate and anger people were capable of, Tim felt sickened at the graphic and gory evidence. Still, as tragic as the violent and senseless loss of someone so young was, he couldn’t help wondering why the medical examiner had specifically invited him to view this cadaver. He’d noted that the victim had several ear piercings but that wasn’t all that unusual, some guys, even straight guys wore earrings, so it wasn’t exactly noteworthy. McGee did observe that the victim’s left nipple had been ripped half off and that the right one was still sporting a gold ring that looked quite expensive but even though he thought you’d have to be crazy to want to have your nipple pierced, it wasn’t that uncommon - in certain circles. 

When he asked Dr Collier why she’d called him down, she lowered the sheet covering the victim’s genital area and he felt himself throw up in his mouth, although he tried to order his roiling gut to behave so he didn’t projectile vomit on the body. Whoever had attacked and mutilated the victim hadn’t stopped on his torso. They’d partially severed the sex worker’s penis and McGee felt his testicles heading due north even as he covered his dick with his hands in a purely reflexive reaction like men did when their partners talked about getting the dog castrated. 

But as horrific as that was, worse was to come. Seemingly oblivious to his horrified response, Suzanne dispassionately directed his attention to the fact that the victim had a least four piercings in his penis. McGee found himself simultaneously cringing in disgust and racing over to the nearest sink where he proceeded to vomit up his breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausage in an embarrassing rookie reaction that made him feel like he’d lost any credibility he might have earned. 

Although he tried to gloss over his lapse, saying that he had stomach flu that he’d caught from a friend, the medical examiner had seen right through his façade. She’d asked him how long he’d been a federal agent, how many cases he’d investigated and how many autopsies he witnessed. He’d tried to bluster his way through but ended up confessing that he’d only been a field agent less than a year. He didn’t tell her that he’d only worked on three cases officially as a probationary field agent and a few cases as a TAD, though.

“So why would Detective Fujiwara tell me that you had a special interest in body piercing,” she asked him curiously.

Trying not to sound too whiney he told her, “Because as part of my liaison work with Metro Vice I’ve compiled a database on tattoos and tattoo artists for identification purposes,” he explained. “It was such a success that Vice wanted me to expand it to include body piercing.”

Collier started at him, “So let me guess, you had no idea that genital body piercing existed, did you, Agent McGee.”

Blushing to the tips of his short brown hair he admitted that he hadn’t. “Not a lot of that thing in the navy and Marines, Doctor,” he said wryly.

Collier chuckled, “Well granted, the victims I come across might be more likely to have a genital piercing but still, you’d be surprised. Besides, it's not like you can identify who has one when they are wearing their clothes, McGee.

Although she’d been empathetic, she’d swiftly concluded that setting up a database on body piercings was a praiseworthy endeavour. She expressed that done properly, it was necessary to understand the subject matter thoroughly.

Suzanne, much to Tim’s horror, proceeded to deliver an extremely embarrassing and painstaking lecture on body piercing, focusing particularly on female and male genital piercing by way of explicit photos, some of which were autopsy photos. She began with what she called an Ampallang piercing which passed horizontally through the glans (euww) and explaining it could either pass through the urethra and was then referred to as a Transurethral Ampallang and one which didn’t. Frankly, McGee thought both sounded like some form of medieval torture.

The ME went on to describe the apadravya piercing as passing through the glans from top to bottom, before moving on to what she said was the most common male genital piercing, a Prince Albert. According to Suzanne it entered through the urethra and exited via a hole pierced at the bottom of the glans. She continued to explain to the squicked-out federal agent that a lot of guys ended up stretching this piercing to very large gauges and this piercing was quite versatile when it came to jewellery.

Appearing to be completely oblivious to his embarrassment Suzanne stated calmly, “An experienced body piercer that I spoke to at a body modification convention told me that the majority of their clients purchase an assortment of different styles of rings and barbells to wear on different days or situations.”

McGee smothered a hysterical giggle, wondering if someone had written and published an etiquette guide on the right style of jewellery for different situations – seduction, recreational and sporting occasions, casual and business attire. He speculated about what would be genital jewellery de rigueur whilst having wild hot sex in a coffin with your kinky Goth girlfriend before ruthlessly pushing that image aside. They weren’t together anymore, and he wouldn’t give up hope that someday they would reconcile but no way would he wear penis jewellery, not even for Abby Sciuto.

With a start, he realised that during his little fantasy the medical examiner had moved on from the Prince Albert piercing to a Reverse Prince Albert which apparently entered through the urethra exiting through a hole pierced at the top of the glans. Ow! Moving on, she pulled up some photographs of foreskin piercing that made him cringe. Seemingly, clients who decided to do this stuff routinely have one done on either side or top and bottom. Then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any more appalling or embarrassing, Dr Collier took him back out to the corpse and showed him that the victim had (aside from a Prince Albert on his partially hacked off penis and ow, ow, ow) what she called a guiche piercing between his anus and scrotum. 

Oblivious to McGee’s squeamishness, the doctor explained that once this piercing was healed some guys chose to wear weights for the added stimulation. Then moved on to demonstrate via graphic autopsy photos that aside from the guiche, there were also scrotal and frenum piercings and that some men had multiple piercings to create a scrotal and frenum ladder that could also be connected up to a guiche ladder. Packing that amount of metal jewellery, Tim wondered how individuals ever managed to pass through a metal detection at an airport. It would be highly problematic especially if you were a pilot or a federal agent in this security conscious post 9/11 era.

He could just picture the sniggers, knowing glances suggestive comments that the security guards would engage in both to the person’s face and behind their back – juvenile, sophomoric high school humour and everyone in the entire building would know since security guards were not known for their discretion. Note to self, Tim resolved. This was a damned good excuse if he and Abby ever got back together like he hoped and she (or any other girlfriend for that matter) ever wanted him to get a genital piercing. He’d say that he wouldn’t be able to get through the metal detectors at NCIS every day.

Meanwhile, the medical examiner had given him a primer on the anthropological origins of genital piercing, making him realise that it was something that certain tribes had practised historically, plus she’d loaned him several books on body piercing, including one on genital and nipple piercing set, in of all times and places, the Victorian era which he’d always thought of as being quite a puritanical, sexually repressed society. Goes to show that you could always live and learn, although Tim could certainly think of a lot of subjects that he’d rather be learning about. Stuff that would be inherently more useful to his career than genital body piercing, but for now though, he needed to play TPTB stupid game until he could get his security clearance back again.

Thinking of sexually repressed individuals immediately made him to think about Special Agent Cate Todd. Tim would bet his beloved Commodore 64 computer that DiNozzo, having been a cop who worked Vice, knew all about genital piercing. However, he would bet his Elf Lord status that Cate would be even more shocked and outraged than he was if she was here right now. Maybe he could get some of his own back for her spilling the beans about him helping Abby with the crop circle shite and thus getting him reassigned and sent to mandatory counselling to get his security clearance returned. It would be extremely gratifying to regale her with all of this stuff since she had caused him so much trouble, if he had the cojones to bring it up of course.

Thinking about Cate’s loose lips (and Abby’s) and the damage it had caused for him, personally not just professionally, set his anger off. His father had been furious when he found out, calling him a disgrace to the family honour and a pantywaist for letting some crazy freak of a female lead him around by his balls. He’d ranted for hours about Tim’s character flaws before telling his son that when he was first hired by NCIS he’d personally assured SECNAV than no son of John McGee would ever permit himself to compromise the agency or the United States of America for personal gain. Now he was left red-faced after Tim went and shat all over the impeccable McGee reputation for some crazy whacko bitch who believed in alien abductions. for pity’s sake. He was threatening to disown him unless Tim was able to redeem himself by getting his security clearance back again.

Sighing frustratedly, he made his way to the elevator, believing he’d completed his business at the depressingly grim city morgue. His arms were loaded up with reference books on Dr Collier’s hobby horse, he was struggling to press the button to summon the elevator car when she excitedly called him back.

Seeing no way out, he returned to her office. He prayed that she hadn’t decided to show him her piercings since he’d decided that no one could be as obsessed with the topic as she was if she didn’t have some intimate piercing herself and really, he didn’t think he could cope with that. Maybe, just maybe, if Abby had one and she offered to show him, he might take her up on it…okay of course he’d take her up on it. BUT Collier was almost as old as Gibbs if he was any judge. He had no desire to see her naked – it would be like looking at his Mom – it would scar him for life.

It had been bad enough when she’d been explaining to him in graphic detail about the different types of female genital piercings. Then she’d begun demonstrating on a Jane Doe stored in a freezer drawer awaited identification. He couldn’t believe it when she’d shown him what a vertical hood and the horizontal hood were, where the jewellery lay relative to the cli…cli… um ah a lady’s pleasure button and then told him that they were the most popular female genital piercing because it enhanced sexual pleasure. Ewwww… he was so not comfortable discussing lady bits with a lady, even if she was a doctor but then he hadn’t been comfortable discussing private man bits with her either. Unaware, or just indifferent that he was utterly mortified, Collier, carried on regardless, explaining the difference between inner and outer labia piercings and how they offered little to no sexual sensation but were purely for aesthetic purposes.

He fervently disagreed with that statement though. As far as McGee was concerned, it was a real turnoff. A _lthough maybe on Abby…_ He ruthlessly stomped on his unchecked libido when it came to the Goth; it was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.

Suzanne paused and looked at him searchingly. At which point, Tim hoped like hell that they were done but unfortunately, Suzanne must have realised that he was wool-gathering because when she saw he was paying attention she launched into an impassioned discussion of a fourchette piercing. She said was probably the least popular of the female genital piercings and was a labial piercing done at the rear rim of the vag… um ‘The Lady Hole’, okay, maybe the doctor didn’t call it that but the medical terminology was… well awkward. Euphemisms were way easier on the uptight computer geek’s sense of propriety.

Anyway, if that fourchette thingy wasn’t gross enough to make you want to puke your guts up, Dr Collier then moved on to explain a triangle piercing that passed underneath the shaft of the um Lady’s Pleasure Button. She said that most recipients reported it offered the most stimulation because it put pressure on their… ah, hooded lady and McGee involuntarily made a meeping sound like a wounded animal, wishing he could curl up into a foetal ball and stick his fingers into his ears. Maybe he could sing the alphabet song or recite the periodic table, something soothing to drown out all this mortification.

By the time Dr Collier started explaining that the Christina was a piercing starting at the top of the hooded lady and exiting through the pubic mound, Tim was genuinely wishing his head would explode so this would all end. Unfortunately, his head remained intact and he had to listen as the enthusiastic medical examiner explained that a Nefertiti was the opposite in that it travelled from the pubic mound and exited through the hooded lady. She explained it as a combination of a Christina and a vertical hood piercing, and he knew that his face was bright red with embarrassment as she waxed lyrical about the subject. God, he hated this stupid assignment – it was pure torture.

As he reluctantly returned to her office, despite his initial fears, she didn’t offer to show him any piercings she might have had done, for which McGee was eternally grateful. Collier was extremely apologetic, explaining after catching up with him that they’d forgotten to include genital beading in the database or pearling, as it was sometimes referred to, especially in South East Asia where it had become popular.

That statement wasn’t entirely factual, however. It may well have slipped her mind but since Tim hadn’t even heard of it before, how the hell could he forget to include it in the piercing database? What was he, psychic or something, he concluded sourly?

Dr Collier who McGee decided would probably get on like a house on fire with Ducky (who was also verbose) produced some sandwiches for their lunch. Tim nibbled on them distractedly, finding the atmosphere to be less than convivial, even if they were in her office and not the autopsy suite. Although, he did welcome the strong coffee before getting down to business still at hand. Having eaten a hearty roast beef sandwich, she preceded to explain that genital beading was another form of body modification. It was the practice of permanently inserting small beads made of various materials (including pearls) beneath the skin of the genitals—of the labia, or the shaft or foreskin of the penis. McGee couldn’t help cringing at the thought but tried to appear professional, asking why it was done.

Suzanne responded, “As well as being an aesthetic practice, this is usually intended to enhance the sexual pleasure of their partners during sex.”

She gave him two more books on the subject, and he beat a fast retreat before she could come up with any more disturbing types of body modification for him to learn about. 

Honest to god, he was not cut out for Vice. Maybe he should have enlisted in the Navy – at least they had tablets for seasickness. Even if they weren’t all that effective, it couldn’t be any worse than this. 

Finally, he was able to make a clean getaway, stopping to drop Dr Collier’s borrowed books in at his apartment before he returned to the precinct to get to work on the project. There was no way he was going to be caught reading those books at the precinct – he’d never hear the end of it. Some of the hazing he’d encountered since becoming a liaison made DiNozzo’s teasing seem like a Sunday school picnic in comparison.

It was highly unfortunate but he’d totally forgotten that his little sister Sarah and his mother were stopping by his place to pick up his good suit for dry-cleaning for a family wedding after meeting up to have lunch together in DC. Now his mom thought he was a sexual degenerate, ignoring his explanation that the reference books were needed for something he was working on for the Metro PD. If that wasn’t bad enough, Sarah was threatening to get a genital piercing that she called a Christina for her birthday after she swiped one of Dr Collier’s books he’d haphazardly dumped on his table at home. His mother would kill them both when she found out and he was under no illusion that she would learn what was going on. His mom was like Gibbs when it came to knowing-all the stupid stuff that her kids didn’t want her to. 

Clutching at his head which throbbed painfully from his stress headache, he wondered, why did he let Abby railroad him into doing what he knew was wrong? She wasn’t even his girlfriend anymore. ‘ _No, but you hope that she will agree to go out with you again when she realises that she made a massive mistake when she broke up with you and that she’ll beg you to take her back’,_ a little voice inside his head berated him mockingly. It was true – he couldn’t deny it, he still was idiotically and completely besotted with the forensic scientist despite the trouble she’d gotten him into.

And for that matter, why didn’t he stand up to his bratty baby sister and demand that she returned the ME’s book on body piercing which she’d stolen from his apartment. Why didn’t he have an adult conversation with his mother and tell her about the database he was working on and warn her about what Sarah was planning. 

Maybe the NCIS psychologist wasn’t completely crazy for telling him that he had a problem being assertive with dominant females and alpha males.

When Dr Collier rang him a few weeks later he panicked, thinking she was going to ask for her book back and Sarah was refusing to return the one she’d swiped. She refused to believe that the books were part of his work. She accused him of being a kinky perv thanks to hooking up with Abby last year, using the fact that he'd had sex in a coffin to bolster her accusations. Honestly, he wished Abby wasn’t such an over sharer, scandalising his mother and making Sarah laugh her ass off.

When he insisted that his sister give back the stolen book, his spoilt annoying little sister agreed but only on the condition of him paying for her to get a Christina piercing and he had to go with her when she got it done for moral support. If his mother found out she'd kill him, and he hadn’t missed the irony that his sibling was blackmailing him, so how did she deserve or need his moral support?

Anyway, Collier was only ringing him to inquire if he’d included scarification and branding in the tattooing database because she would be more than happy to help him with it. Plus, she had several excellent books on both topics.

Oh my gosh, Tim thought, he couldn’t wait to return to the bizarre cases they got at NCIS, it would be so restful. 

Part 5

Abby Sciuto, forensic scientist, Goth, surrogate daughter to Leroy Jethro Gibbs, extremely pissed-off former lover of Timothy McGee and a good friend to Sister Rosita stomped into the convent of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Her black leather platform boots with its multi-buckled fastenings resounding up the hallway to the kitchen where the tired nun was dicing vegetables for the evening meal. Sister Rosita sighed frustratedly; it seemed that Abby was in a foul mood…again. She got that Abby was upset about what had happened at work, but really, Abby needed to accept the reality of her situation. Which when it was all said and done, it was of her own making and she needed to either deal with it or resign and find a new job.

It was over two months since she’d been suspended without pay for four interminable weeks. Since her return to work last month, Abby had taken to calling around regularly to decry the conditions she was now expected to work under at NCIS. Sister Rosita was trying hard to be patient and supportive because she considered the forensic scientist to be a good friend. Not just to herself but also to the whole convent community including the other nuns and while she knew that Abby was generally a kind and caring soul but that didn’t mean that she condoned what Abby had done, either. In fact, she didn’t excuse it at all!

As much as she loved the younger woman like a daughter and recognised her many good qualities, it didn’t mean the nun was blind to Abby’s failings. Abby could be stubborn, incredibly stubborn as in mule-like. She could be childish, demanding attention and adoration and frequently churlish when she didn’t get her own way. Plus, she was prone to manipulative behaviour on occasions. Alas, she wasn’t above using men, particularly males who loved her and were therefore particularly vulnerable to her feminine wiles.

Abby could be incredibly flirty with younger men and then just as easily turned on the little-girl-lost routine with more mature males. In truth, the pigtails and long white knee-high socks teamed with her schoolgirl miniskirts she favoured to show off her long legs no doubt helping to create the allusion of someone young and helpless, although the truth was that she wasn’t either. The truth was that she was a highly competent super intelligent female scientist who was more than capable of looking out for herself, which of course was fortunate, Sister Rosita decided, considering the type of seedy nightclubs she favoured going to.

Meanwhile, Abby made her way up the long corridor to the rectory kitchen and Sister Rosita fully expected her to be in a foul mood, wanting to rant again about how horrible everyone was being to her and how unfair that it was. Normally, the unfailing good-natured nun would let all of Abby’s pouting and angst roll right off her back as she had done so many times before, but not today. Today she’d been holding vigil at the hospital with a devastated mother whose seven-year-old child was dying of leukemia. The doctors had been unable to find a compatible match for the boy, Jason to be able to undergo a bone marrow transplant and he’d died earlier this afternoon.

Sadly, the single mother and her other child, three-year-old little Amelia would likely be thrown out on the streets soon, since they had a massive amount of medical bills which had accrued over the last two years of Jason’s battle with leukemia. Mountains of horrendously expensive medical tests and medical procedures, numerous rounds of ultimately unsuccessful chemotherapy treatments and hospitalisations added up to a whole lot more money than the poor woman was able to earn. The only certainty was that the grieving mother would be forced into declaring bankruptcy. The poor woman didn’t even have enough money to bury her son and when Sister Rosita had promised that they would meet all the funeral expenses, the grief-stricken mother collapsed against her, sobbing in sheer relief that he would be laid to rest in a proper ceremony. 

In light of the tragic end of the innocent young life, the kind-hearted nun was not in the mood for Abby’s egocentric pity-party. She was also primed to engage in some blunt home truths that would likely not be welcomed with open arms by the one who needed to hear them. 

After Abby greeted her with a perfunctory, “Hey Sister Rosita, how are you?” she then proceeded not to listen when the nun replied that she’d had a bad day. Instead of asking why her day had gone so badly, Abby who’d become trapped in her victimhood persona started in on her customary whining which essentially consisted of _I don’t understand, why everyone being so mean to me and crying copious tears_.

Unable to bite her tongue a minute longer, Sister Rosita found herself interrupting which was unusual for the nun who prided herself on her listening skills but then again, she’d heard it all before, for weeks now. “So, quit!” she said sternly.

Caught completely off guard, Abby paused in mid-rant. “What did you say?”

Sister Rosita folded her arms firmly, her nonverbal body language resolute. “I said then you should resign, Abby if you feel you are being treated so badly.”

Abby stared at her friend in amazement. “Why would you say such a horrid thing to me? You know how much I love my job,” she asked, sounding properly hurt. “I work my butt off to lock up dirtbags and I’m good at it.” 

“I know you do, Abby, and you put in a lot of overtime but if you’re so unhappy then you should find someplace better.”

“How can you say that? NCIS is like my family, Sister Rosita,” Abby said sulkily.

“Then for the love of Mike, stop whining about how mean everyone is being to you, Abby Sciuto. You sound like a child and a bratty one at that.”

“Well I can’t help it since I’m being treated like a child,” she retorted glowering at the large refrigerator, as if it was somehow to blame for her angst. “I can’t believe I have to get permission to carry out tests for every case I’m working on and I’m being remotely monitored by some doddering old septuagenarian from the San Diego lab who gets to sign off on my work all of a sudden,” she wailed. 

“I’m a highly regarded forensic scientist and I’m entitled to be treated with professional respect, not like some neophyte,” she argued. “And instead, I’m treated like a criminal or something. It’s not fair!” she stamped her foot in her most childish manner.

In the mood for some very forthright talking, the brown-eyed nun sniffed loudly. “Well Abigail Sciuto, you are being treated like a criminal because, by my reckoning, you have committed numerous crimes. You used the NCIS lab to conduct a personal investigation and performed thousands of dollars of forensic tests that were unnecessary and unauthorised, knowingly defrauding a federal agency. Compounding your delinquency, you coerced a federal agent into collecting evidence for your private scientific investigation and made him complicit in ripping off NCIS and taxpayers. You’re lucky that you still have a job, Missy.”

Abby looked at her friend in hurt disbelief which quickly morphed into anger. “Now hang on a minute. I work my ass…um my butt off at NCIS, I’ve done hundreds of hours of overtime which I haven’t been paid for. I’m probably owed twice, even three times as much money as doing a few tests cost and it was case related,” she insisted.

“Initially it was, but once it became apparent that the Marine pilots hadn’t mysteriously disappeared due to alien intervention then all of those scientific tests became unnecessary. It crossed the line into becoming all about personal curiosity in a subject that interests you intensely,” Sister Rosita told her firmly, noting Abby’s prodigious looking pout. It was not a good look on anyone but on a woman of science, it was a parody. 

“And I don’t care that you might feel like you are owed more than the cost of the unnecessary tests you ran, Abby. The point is that you didn’t request payment for the extra hours you worked and that was your decision not to seek recompense.”

Seeing Abby was about to protest, she said, “And no, I don’t care if you were going to tell me that you don’t get paid overtime; you chose to accept that pre-condition when you took the job. If you don’t like the conditions, then find somewhere else to work or suck it up, just like everyone else has to.”

Abby reared back, caught off guard by the Sister’s harsh words and stern tone of voice and the normally mild-mannered nun wasn’t surprised. Most people probably thought of her as a happy-go-lucky, even-tempered woman but she worked hard to control her temper. Today, it had gotten free, but she wasn’t sorry…not now. Maybe later she would regret her harsh words to her good friend but today was not the day for Abby to come wanting her to join in on her poor me pity party.

“Abigail, if a nurse or doctor worked overtime and didn’t get paid for it, would it be okay to take medical equipment like a tank of oxygen or run free diagnostic tests, say, a CT scan or an MRI on their friends and family in place of unpaid work they’d carried out? No, because it would mean that someone else would miss out because the budget only allows for a finite resource which, if used up, would then need to be rationed. What if ten other people did the same thing because they felt entitled because of the long hours they’d also worked without getting recompense? 

“It’s still stealing to take a resource away from another department who needs it to carry out its duties, my dear girl. Apart from the fact that a small agency like NCIS doesn’t have the same budgetary resources of larger federal agencies, which I’m sure you know already. And aside from the cost, what other investigations might have been negatively affected just so you could satisfy your curiosity?” Sister Rosita asked her astutely.

Abby had the grace to blush and look uncomfortable before trying to justify her actions. “No, it wasn’t like that Sister. There was only one case, a cold case and Ducky said it had waited so long, another day or two wouldn’t hurt.”

“Well, I can’t say I agree with his assessment Abby. A family member who never got closure for the death or disappearance of their loved one might have died in those few days, never knowing the truth. Even if the case was forty years old, that investigation always should have taken precedence over your frivolous investigative project, even if they were sanctioned, which they were not. That was extremely unprofessional conduct Abby, no wonder you are being constantly monitored; you abused the trust that was placed in you so you can’t complain about the natural consequences of your actions, my dear.”

Abby’s pale green eyes flashed in anger. “Hey, I resent the accusation that I acted unprofessionally. If Ducky had wanted the evidence analysed, I’d have complied. He said it could wait. You should blame him, not me.”

Sister Rosita stared at her, unmoved. “Did Dr Mallard know that you were carrying out tests to prove your alien crop circle theory or did he assume that you were working on the investigation into the pilot’s disappearance and his brother? Wouldn’t he assume that a forensic scientist of your experience reputation and standing would not be running a personal forensic inquiry on NCIS’ time and dime? Even if he’d known, would Ducky have said the same thing if he was aware that when you didn’t like the test results, that you ran the tests twice hoping to get the result you wanted?”

Looking somewhat chastened, Abby cast her eyes downward which the exasperated nun noted were now filled with unshed tears and mumbled truculently, “I don’t know.”

“Knowing how you’ve said that Dr Mallard stands up for the rights of the dead, I’m guessing there’s no way he would have countenanced your ‘research’ taking precedent over an official case. Not if he is half as principled as you’ve portrayed him to be. You took advantage of him, Abby. You knew all too well that what you were working on was not agency business even if he didn’t. As a forensic scientist who prides herself on her professional reputation, it was extremely negligent of you not to run his tests. Even if you won’t admit it, you know I’m right or you’re not the person I thought you were, Dr Sciuto.”

By this point in their rancorous discussion, Abby started sobbing piteously but Sister Rosita found herself to be impassive in the presence of her tears. She’d witness the genuine tears of a mother’s grief for her child and felt enormous empathy for her loss whereas Abby’s tears didn’t come close, especially as the nun wasn’t certain if she crying because she truly regretted her actions or because she’d been taken to task.

However, Sister Rosita knew that Abby was quite manipulative at times and she wasn’t in the mood for silly mind games. Tears might work on her male colleagues because many men couldn’t deal with a woman crying but females were far less likely to fall prey to that ploy. Huffing in exasperation, the older woman got up to stir the pot of soup that was bubbling away on the archaic convent stovetop.

As Abby continued to blubber, she said frankly, “Stop with the manipulative crying, Abby, it won’t work. I’ve been up since 3.45 am holding vigil with Angeline Carrera as her little boy died of leukemia this morning, I’m not feeling at that charitable to someone who is trying to manipulate me into feeling sorry for her.”

Giving credence to her suspicions that Abby was more upset that her friend had taken her to task about her bad behaviour, rather than feeling guilty, the Goth stopped her sobbing and said with great indignance, “I can’t believe you would accuse me of being manipulative, Sister Rosita. I thought you were my friend.”

Ignoring Abby’s, _you’ve cut me to the quick expression,_ she responded calmly. “And yet, you had no compunction manipulating your friend and colleague, Timothy McGee into aiding you in mismanaging the agency resources and collect unnecessary evidence from the scene.”

“Hey, Timmy’s a big boy. He could have said no to me if he wanted to.”

“You offered to show him your new tattoo, Abby. That sounds like coercion, or at the very least, offering inducements to get him to do your bidding. You used your intimate knowledge of a past lover’s vulnerabilities to help you to carry out an unauthorised forensic investigation. Morally and ethically that’s very wrong. It was also manipulative.”

Seeing the mulish look on the Goth’s face Sister Rosita sighed. “Abby, because of your manipulation, Agent McGee has been disciplined and may not get reassigned back as a field agent, which as you told me, was his dream. And even if he does, that serious transgression will stay with him on his permanent record. Your selfishness has and will continue to affect his career.”

Their terse conversation was interrupted at that point when Sister Mary Augustine entered the rectory kitchen to start baking bread rolls and Sister Bridget came to check on the roast beef for dinner. As Abby declined an invitation to join them for a meal and left somewhat abruptly, Sister Rosita hoped that she would go home and think long and hard about what they’d talked about. 

Hopefully, Abby would soon realise she was dead wrong about this and feel genuine contrition. Sister Rosita resolved that it was high time she gave Special Agent Gibbs a piece of her mind. In her opinion, he was turning Abigail Sciuto into a spoilt, self-centred bratty child by treating her as an entitled princess because he acted like she was a substitute daughter.

She strongly suspected that Gibbs once had a family and lost them or was estranged from them because Abby had often said how good he was with children. So, although she sympathised with him because she was a kind god-fearing woman, Abby wasn’t a child, although she was becoming increasing childish and it was not an attractive or welcome change. The nun wanted her quirky, sassy, caring friend back again and no soft-headed sentimental father figure was going to stand in her way. 

Coda 

Gibbs threw down the case file in disgust. He knew that cold cases were important but the likelihood of these cases turning hot was not overly high. 

After all, they’d gone cold for a reason – all leads had been chased down and had gone nowhere. Any fresh avenues of investigation exhausted. Very occasionally fresh evidence came to light or a witness withholding evidence might decide to confess what they knew. Sometimes new forensic processes might be developed and then able to unlock DNA or other trace evidence left at the crime scene. Of course, having fresh eyes look over the cold cases, on occasion did yield results but not often. Yet despite the chances of solving a case diminishing over time they were still obligated to pursue the case for as long as there was even the slightest chance to achieve justice, Gibbs thought with a frustrated sigh.

Like many other investigators before him, Gibbs got off on the thrill of the chase, _the whole 72- golden hours to find the dirtbags before the trail goes cold,_ narrative. He was an apex predator who needed a quarry to pursue for him to feel fully alive…and to distract himself from the reality of his losses. He needed the hunt to hide from his abject failure protecting his beloved wife and daughter which had cost them their lives. Cold cases rarely gave him that thrill of the chase or the luxury of being able to shut out the realities of his miserable existence. Truth be told, he hated working cold cases, not that he would ever admit that to anyone, although he suspected that Tom Morrow had an inkling of his aversion. Tom was a canny bastard; perhaps not in Gibbs league but he was smart enough to know Jethro’s weaknesses, nonetheless. 

Up until recently, the MCRT had a way better than the average clearance of cold case files but as much as it pained him to admit it the solve rate had plummeted back down below the norm since the team had been reassigned to cold cases and Balboa’s team had taken over as the DC major case response team. While all the teams would examine cold cases when they weren’t pursuing active ones, there hadn’t been a dedicated Cold Case team since Chris had been murdered – his intestines brutally spilled in an elevator in a brazen attempt to locate the memory thingy card in his digital cameras Pacci swallowed, knowing his death was imminent. 

While he wasn’t exactly enamoured with working cold cases, Gibbs was enough of a pragmatist to recognise that it was grist for the mill. When they had quiet periods, teams would start revisiting cold cases in the hope that something might have changed, or a fresh set of eyes would see something that others might have overlooked. Jethro also was grudgingly willing to admit to himself (if to no one else) that he rather liked basking in the congratulatory glow of the agency when his team successfully closed another cold one that has been sitting unsolved in some evidence file. 

Unfortunately, it had been three weeks since they’d been assigned to working cold cases fulltime and they had only closed one case and that was mostly due to the notes Pacci had left in the case file, suggesting several witnesses he’d planned to reinterview before the last case had claimed his attention and ultimately his life. He’d noted in his distinctly scrawly handwriting that the guy Chris suspect of killing the midshipman had reportedly found God and the agent had speculated if the right pressure had been brought to bear, he might just be willing to confess to the murder. 

Pacci had been correct on both counts, his suspect had been the killer and finding God had made him vulnerable to being interrogated. So, Gibbs didn’t feel like his team had really earnt the collar – they’d simply been following up on their dead colleague’s preliminary work and it felt wrong to accept accolades for working one of Chris’ hunches. 

The exasperated team leader stood up and stretched, fed up with being tied so much to his desk which was a given in that most of the fieldwork was already complete. Pacci was far better suited to cold cases than Gibbs. He was a patient easy-going agent who could bide his time; he was dogged, meticulous and thorough. Quite the antithesis of Gibbs who was as hot-tempered and impulsive as Chris had been circumspect and measured in his approach to investigating. Pacci’s stellar qualities made him uniquely suited to cold cases while the former Marine needed more stimulation and excitement. He required the much higher probability of being able to bring down his prey in order to keep in check his ever-present fury at the death of his family or at least, for him to at least keep it under some semblance of control.

When he was in the end stages of a case, during the capture of the target, it was almost the only time he could focus completely upon the present and not get mired down in the past. Cold cases gave him too much time to think…too much time to remember. 

Under normal circumstances, he would have probably been able to stick out temporary banishment to Cold Cases if they were at least achieving their usual closure rate – at least for a few months, but their solve rate was pathetic. It was why they had been shunted over to cold cases in the first place…well that and the fact they were missing two team members. It had exposed the fact that Todd (despite her profiler training at the Secret Service) was not a great investigator and the closure rate had slumped to an all-time low of seventy-two percent. Given her deficiencies as an investigator, Morrow claimed that he couldn’t justify keeping just the two of them on the MCRT.

Gibbs protested pointing out, “DiNozzo and I worked as a team for 12 months before I hired Cate as the third team member.”

Morrow snorted ironically, “True, but Agent DiNozzo was a trained investigator and the two of you had an enviable closure rate. That’s the only reason I allowed you to work together for as long as you did,” he stated acerbically, not even bothering to hide his ire at the former Marine sniper.

Gibbs grumbled but there was no denying the truth of the director’s statement, much as he would have liked to. Unfortunately, that left him stuck in limbo in Pacci’s old job and aside from him being ill at ease exclusively working cold cases, it was also a constant reminder that Pacci was dead. Which in turn, reminded him that Chris had come seeking his help in that last disastrous case and he’d brushed him off, fixated on solving his own case so he could get back to finding Haswari. 

Damn it! Everything had turned to shit and much as it pained him to admit it, the fault was his. When McGee and Abby had been disciplined over the unauthorised forensic testing and she’d been constantly caterwauling about how the director had been mean to her, Gibbs had become enraged at DiNozzo.

_He’d told Gibbs that pranking McGee while he was searching the cornfield with the magnetic thingamabob was his way of disciplining McGee. He said it was because Jethro wouldn’t like Abby getting dragged into an official investigation for her malfeasance._

Yet when they returned to DC after completing their assignment at the Norfolk Naval Base to discover there’d been a witch hunt into the unnecessary forensic tests Abby ran on the crop circles, Jethro had immediately assumed DiNozzo had lied to him. He’d railed against DiNozzo, publicly denouncing his actions in failing to observe chain-of-command and going over his head to Tom Morrow, only to learn much later he was wrong.

The NCIS director informed him (after hearing his false accusations of DiNozzo along with most of the other agents present) that he’d learnt about Abby’s shenanigans via the scuttlebutt doing the rounds. Unbelievably, the office gossip was due in no small part to Cate and Abby gloating about how gullible McGee had been in getting duped into doing her bidding, not knowing the tattoo she promised to show him was on her ankle.

Gibbs kicked his wastepaper bin in frustrated anger. He’d stuffed up! 

As he’d been going off on his senior field agent, he’d maliciously enjoyed tearing him a new one right in the middle of the bullpen. Gibbs chose to ignore the momentary fury and betrayal he caught sight of on his 2IC’s features before DiNozzo ruthlessly banished all sign of emotion, enduring the rest of his diatribe with calm stoicism. Once he learnt that it was Abby and Todd who’d inadvertently let the cat out of the bag that engulfed the team, not Tony, he realised that he had some fence-mending to do with the senior field agent. He’d invited him over to his place for dinner by way of apology since Gibbs would rather remarry Diane, his ex-wife (one of his exes) than say he was sorry to anyone, especially a subordinate. It was bad for team discipline he told himself repeatedly. 

Turned out his attempts at hospitality and penitence were a disastrous waste of time. DiNozzo was uncharacteristically quiet. He spoke civilly when Gibbs addressed him, but otherwise, he remained silent and watchful, a situation which Gibbs found quite unnerving. No good ever came out of a quiet, still Anthony DiNozzo; the man was quintessential human quicksilver, always in motion. It should have told him that the situation was FUBAR and called for desperate measures, but he ignored his gut. Mostly they ate their cowboy steaks (which per usual he’d cooked over his open fireplace) in an uncomfortably stilted atmosphere which ended up giving Gibbs a bad case of heartburn. 

At the end of the meal, with the mood increasingly awkward, DiNozzo had looked at him appraisingly before asking. “Was there anything that you wanted to talk about Gibbs?”

Jethro knew damned well that he was angling for an apology but honestly, DiNozzo had worked with him for more than three years now. He knew very well that Gibbs didn’t believe in apologising because it was a sign of weakness. So, he shrugged and said, “Nope.”

DiNozzo had given him a measured stare, holding eye contact for several minutes without speaking, searching his face for something. Gibbs in hindsight later figured he’d probably been seeking a sign that the SSA regretted his actions but finding no sign of contrition, DiNozzo sighed and said, “Right…well, thanks for dinner, Gibbs,” and left. 

The phrase ‘ _don’t let the door hit you on the way out’_ popped into Gibbs’ mind as he analysed his senior field agent’s speedy departure. Although Tony didn’t exactly run out of the house like the Hounds of Hell were on his heels, more of a purposeful stride eating up the distance to his car, there was an air of determinedness about the ex-cops' departure. It seemed fanciful at the time but the way DiNozzo closed his car door foretold of a cold finality which he tried to shake off as foolishness, but his gut persisted in twisting. 

Despite his spoken rule about apologies and the unspoken one regarding remorse, his eponymous Gibbs’ gut was telling him that he messed up his dinner tonight. Bungled it epically. He’d failed to convey that he recognised that DiNozzo was blameless over Morrow finding out about Abby’s off the books whack-a-doodle investigation into alien crop circles at Smoky Corners. That he knew that the director had found out via the gossiping of Cate and Abby. 

Jethro momentarily considered chasing after his agent, confident he could catch him if he wanted to but his stubborn streak, the one which saw apologies as a sign of weakness, quickly vetoed that idea. He decided he would compromise and take his SFA one of those damned coffees he favoured with a heap of sugar and that hazelnut creamer shit instead. It seemed clear to Jethro that DiNozzo was going to play hardball, refusing to take the dinner in the spirit it had been intended – as a peace offering. 

Unfortunately, it had been far too late for a coffee on DiNozzo’s desk to try to fix the mess he’d created. Morrow informed Jethro that late the previous night Tony had called him at home to inform the NCIS director he’d accepted a secondment request from the FBI. He would be going undercover for the foreseeable future working with the bureau’s organised crime division. Tom was ropable, saying that after Gibbs public evisceration of DiNozzo in the bullpen, word had swiftly spread like wildfire to the other alphabets that Jethro’s golden boy was out of favour with The-Almighty-Gibbs and job offers had come flooding in for him from all the other agencies, keen to secure his services. After attending Gibbs dinner, he’d told Tom that he was taking the temporary undercover gig to get some distance before he considered his career options.

He’d indicated however that even if he stayed, he didn’t want to return to the major case response team and that left Morrow wanting blood…Gibbs blood, if he’d lost a brilliant undercover agent and investigator. Yep, Gibbs name was mud and apparently, SECNAV was pissed with him too.

Tony’s exodus left Gibbs with just Todd on the team since Morrow had decreed that Abby and McGee were not to work together anymore and Gibbs had already used up his markers saving Abby’s job. McGee, in the unlikely event that he regained security clearance and requalified for field status, would be transferred to the San Diego office, which effectively left the MCRT in ruins. He’d tried to soldier on with Cate – after all, he and DiNozzo had worked as a team for more than a year and his closure rate had always been excellent. They’d do so again.

Well, that theory was swiftly shot down when their solve rate plummeted without DiNozzo. One of the biggest obstacles was that Todd seemed utterly incapable of observing one of his cardinal rules. She was constantly becoming emotionally involved in the case, making her annoyingly myopic about people who were potential suspects. The former Secret Service agent was too caught up with the victims to remain objective while working the case, which was worrying, especially when Gibbs had difficulty maintaining distance in some situations. He needed someone to compensate for his need to save Shannon and Kelly via the victims who became de facto surrogates and pull him back when he crossed too far over the line of professionalism.

As if her deficiencies as an investigator and a partner having his six wasn’t enough, there was her constant haranguing him about his patriarchal leadership style. She’d always a firebrand however lately she seemed to have stepped it up a notched or five. Gibbs growled in annoyance – if he wanted to be nagged 24/7, he’d had gotten married again. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have females throwing themselves at him either. He thought fondly of the sexy redhead who hung out with him in his basement, but he knew that it worked because it was casual. Making the relationship permanent would have ultimately ended up in a fourth divorce and his bank balance couldn’t cope with the strain.

As he focused back on Todd who seemed to think she had joined a democracy when he gave her a job, he shrugged mentally. Perhaps her nagging and criticism were just more obvious now it was just the two of them working together. So, all in all it wasn’t exactly surprising that their closure stats tanked.

As much as it hurt to lose the MCRT to Ric Balboa’s team (who in his opinion, couldn’t hold a candle to his team) well, his former team, he couldn’t really blame Morrow for having to act . His inability to admit he was wrong or formally apologise to DiNozzo had cost him dearly, losing the role of leading the top team in DC, if not the entire agency. The stubborn Marine was loath to concede it publicly, but he had no doubt that if DiNozzo hadn’t deserted him, they would still hold that coveted position – after all, they’d functioned as a three-person team with Todd last year before he’d added McGee to the line-up.

Gibbs returned to his desk, albeit with reluctance, parking his ass in his chair as he picked up the cold case he’d been reading, feeling frustrated and out of sorts. In the face of his team’s ignominious fall from grace, he decided that perhaps it was time he did an audit of his rules. Maybe just maybe it was time for a new rule too – sometimes you’re wrong! And odious as it might be to his sense of propriety, Rule Six needed to be re-evaluated. Perhaps if you couldn’t apologise when you’d made a huge mistake that was a sign of weakness. It might just have save his precious team that he’d spent the last three years carefully building if he’d been able to apologise for his actions. God knows, DiNozzo was a much more forgiving person that Gibbs would ever be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I do know that Rule 51 – sometimes you’re wrong - wasn’t developed until a much later point in the show but then Gibbs had never had to face the consequences of his many mistakes or breaking of rules and regulations either. Perhaps he may have been pushed into achieving his spectacularly narcissistic revelation that no one is always right all the time that much sooner. Imagine the implications of that epiphany if you will! 
> 
> Until the next tag, stay safe everyone.


	4. Long May Your Big Jib Draw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As 2020 winds down, I’ve managed to produce another episode tag for TATM (season two) all in amongst a heap of upheaval and drama. Writing has extremely difficult, but it gave me an escape from a pretty grim RL so I'm grateful for small mercies. This is a slight departure from my usual TATM tags. Tom Morrow has featured in all tags so far until this one – his influence takes place off screen. Also, fair warning, this one is very dialogue- driven, plus it's also quite a bit different in style to my usual tags – you’ll see what I mean.
> 
> It's unbeta’ed, so my commas probably need the odd wrangle or three but here it is FWIW. In contrast to my usual ten  
> redrafts and then several weeks of angst before finally posting it, I’m uploading the story after just 3 redrafts drafts and 4 days of procrastination and anguish. I’m trying to convince myself that I’m getting my streak of perfectionism tamed, but the truth is that it probably has more to do with my current level of exhaustion, which combined with time constraints, have left me not caring as much about the inevitable boo boos I've missed. 
> 
> Special mention goes to Arress for her eagle eye and observations about the Lieutenant Jane Doe episode which has been sitting on my hard drive for a couple of years, waiting for me to get around to writing this tag. Which I did! Finally! Yay! I hope that you enjoy # 4 – only another 19 more tags to go!

Series: There’s Always Tom Morrow (season two)

Episode: Lieutenant Jane Doe

Title: Long May Your Big Jib Drawl

Characters: Dr Donald Mallard, Jane Doe, Hubert Cross (OC), honourable mentions for Tom Morrow and Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

Dr Donald Mallard walked purposefully across the manicured lawns of the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia. After consulting the map that his young assistant, Jimmy Palmer, had found it on the internet and printed off for him The NCIS medical examiner headed in the direction of the Grecian Garden. Although he and Jimmy often became disorientated on the way to a crime scene, Donald had studied the map carefully, plotting out an itinerary of locations he wished to see. 

Dr Mallard, Ducky to his friends, strode surefootedly across the ground for a man in his sixties. He was clutching a handmade wooded box which he’d commissioned a local Virginian artisan, Jacob Goodfellow to make containing the cremains of Lieutenant Jane Doe, date of death: 12th October 1994, as he surveyed the garden admiringly. Sighting a stone bench, he headed towards in, laying his burden down reverentially beside him as he sat down, contemplating his surroundings intently. 

Reminding himself of his mission as he glanced around the garden, he sighed with uncharacteristic melancholia. In general, Ducky was a man who chose to view the world with the awe and enthusiasm of a child. This was despite encountering daily examples of criminals subjecting their fellow humans and sentient creatures to sordid and monstrous depravities, often for trivial petty personal agendas. He’d made a conscious attempt to counter such dark evil by deliberately adopting a ‘glass-half-full’ philosophy to get him through life.

Taking a deep breath, the forensic pathologist began to speak calmly, although to a casual observer it appeared that he was alone. “Well my dear, I felt it was only fair to apprise you of the outcome of our last case which we wrapped up on Friday since it was connected to your death a decade ago.” 

Looking somewhat abashed, the preeminent NCIS forensic pathologist ducked his head slightly. “I know that I have been remiss in keeping you abreast of what has been going on lately. Somehow, we never seem to find the time to converse very often anymore and yes,” he said, raising a hand as if to pre-empt what she might want to say, “I do realise that the fault lies wholly with myself.” 

Shrugging wryly, he continued, “Somehow, cases keep on mounting up, particularly the paperwork, which seems never-ending. The devil is most definitely in the details, Miss Jane. A poorly worded autopsy report, a sloppy collection of trace evidence or a badly chosen response to a question whilst testifying in court can, unfortunately, result in a monster getting away with heinous crimes. As you know better than anyone, victims need to have closure, my dear and it is my job to help make that happen.”

Ducky stared pensively at the Grecian urn which was situated near a massed planting of blue delphiniums as he chose his words carefully. “I know that you’ve been waiting for what must feel like an eternity for justice, Jane so I want you to know that we’ve finally identified the brute who killed you. He was a machinists mate stationed at Norfolk Naval Base, discharged two months before he attacked you and...” he paused, shaking his head. “But I suppose that I really should start at the beginning of how we managed to figure that out. You deserve to know all the details.”

“The case begins with two navy seaman, Joe Wilkins and Tom Jennings who wereserving aboard the Abraham Lincoln and it had just docked at Norfolk. Our young sailors were on leave, hurrying to catch up with their girlfriends after spending many months deployed at sea and were heading off-base when one of these libidinous young men needed to go to the bathroom. 

“The driver of the pickup truck…I’m sorry Jane, but I’m not sure which seaman was driving the truck… pulled into a recreational area on-base to use the restroom. However, unfortunately, the restrooms are locked as it was quite late, so he decided to relieve himself up against a tree near a set of bleachers. As the seaman turned away from a tree, he spotted a woman's body on the ground. It must have startled him quite thoroughly, I’m sure,” he said in all seriousness. 

Ducky, normally an ebullient person, sighed moodily as he gazed at a marble figurine of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty, love, and desire. He hoped that his Jane Doe had experienced love during her all too brief life before it had been callously snuffed out by the monster as he’d raped and murdered the poor young woman. How he wished that the misogynist fiend had been forced to face justice for killing Jane, the young woman who’d been in his care for all this time. While it was cold comfort to the doctor, at least Harlen Wilson was incarcerated in Canada for one of his crimes.

Continuing to tell his complicated tale, he resumed speaking softly. “Our valiant and by this stage rather needy sailors flagged down the attractive and extremely eager young Petty Officer called Cynthia Cluxton, to report finding the body of a partially clad navy lieutenant. PO Cluxton was the Master at Arms who was on security patrol that night, most conveniently as it turned out. The petty officer informed Agent Gibbs and the team that she’d been quite busy by the time they’d arrived on the base. She’d painstakingly preserved the crime scene and searched the victim for ID.”

Ducky clucked disapprovingly, “While young Agent Todd was suitably impressed, Jethro was not! When he learnt that she’d handled the body even though she told him she was wearing gloves he was furious. I believed I’ve mentioned his legendary impatience with incompetent individuals on other occasions, so you can imagine his irritation at such a rookie mistake, especially by the Master at Arms.

“That particularly egregious breach of forensics protocols should have immediately been a red flag, along with her intense interest in the forensic side of the investigation,” Ducky grumbled before sighing before he resumed reporting on what had happened.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself, I fear. The petty officer also took it upon herself to interview our young sailor, that did not endear her to Special Agent Gibbs who promptly had Special Agent DiNozzo reinterview them. McGee recognised our young Master-at Arms – it turned out that they’d worked together in Norfolk.

He paused, frowning as if listening to a remark, unheard by anyone else who might have been loitering, listening to the medical examiner telling his story.

“That’s an excellent point, my dear. I have spent so long working with NCIS that I forget that a civilian might not be familiar with all the military jargon. A Master at Arms is the navy’s security and force protection professions. In other words, they are part of the military police force, both on land and at sea. They are security specialists who carry out anti-terrorism, force protection, physical security, and law enforcement duties on land and at sea. 

“A Master at Arms’ duties may include: managing base access, conducting base security patrols, law enforcement operation, performing security inspections, conduct K-9 explosive and narcotics detection missions, organise and train security personnel, operate Navy jails known as brigs, and conduct investigations and crime prevention programs. So, a murder investigation would not be her purview, that would immediately fall within NCIS jurisdiction.” He chuckled briefly.

“Yes, quite right, Miss Jane. It’s clear that with her MP training, she knew that NCIS would be handling the investigation into what, at first glance, appeared to be rape and murder. She most certainly knew that she had no business disturbing the body, not for ID on the poor victim, not for any reason. That alone should have set alarm bells rings for sure, despite her earnest eager to-learn mien.”

Shaking his head in disgust, Ducky continued to vent his spleen to Jane, “With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that PO Cluxton did so in case I found trace evidence leading back to her. That way, she could argue that the transfer of evidence occurred whilst she was at the crime scene, searching the body.” 

Ducky was deeply disappointed in himself that it hadn’t occurred to him at the time, but she seemed so young and winsome…and innocent. He hated to admit it, but it hadn’t occurred to him to suspect a female had killed Janice Santos – mostly because the scene was staged to replicate Lieutenant Jane Doe’s crime scene. No doubt Caitlin would be quick to label him a chauvinist and he supposed that was a fair cop, but then again, their resident profiler hadn’t considered their killer might be a female either. 

Shaking his head, he returned to his quasi-chronological account. “So, Mr Palmer and I arrived at the scene. Excited about my upcoming jaunt to England, I was regaling the team about the origin of the Society of Medical Examiners who were meeting in London. I had every intention of attending that assemblage just as soon as I collected the poor young Lieutenant’s body and returned with her to DC.

“At that point I was explaining to the team that our esteemed society was founded by none other than the original renaissance man, Leonardo DaVinci in the same year he commenced painting the famed Mona Lisa. Of course, Jethro swiftly interrupted my little oration, quite rightly reminding me of why we were there,” he chuckled wryly. “You know my propensity to become distracted when I am nattering about a particularly fascinating topic, my dear child,” he admitted truthfully.

“Anyway, I began my examination of the body, noting the bruising on the poor woman’s neck, most likely from being strangled. My subsequent examination back in the lab confirmed this initial diagnosis, by the way. Also, she had bruises on her legs, her panties pulled down to her knees. This was highly suggestive of a rape taking place. However, it was impossible to confirm the cause of death or sexual assault without an autopsy. All I could do was state my first impressions suggested she’d been raped and strangled and give an approximate time of death.

Ducky thought about how the cause of death had deliberately replicated Lieutenant Jane Doe’s murder. He hated being played for a fool and by a chit of a girl, too. He shook his head, knowing that they might have acted like marionettes dancing to her tune as she pulled everyone’s strings, damn the bloody conniving petty officer but the MCRT had the final laugh, thank goodness.

Taking a deep breath as he regained his usual optimistic outlook, he continued his story.

“Agent DiNozzo, after interviewing the two sailors who had found the poor unfortunate young woman’s body, asked Jethro if he could release them as they had not seen their lady loves in over six months. Actually,” Ducky chuckled roguishly, “I believe it was six months, three weeks and eighteen hours and Anthony was suitably appalled by their enforced celibacy in the service of their country. He then overshared with Caitlin, telling her the longest he had gone without having intimate relations.

“Needless to say, she was none too impressed,” he chuckled briefly. “I find it rather, Miss Jane that a profiler, who Agent Todd professes to be, could be so obtuse. She can’t seem to comprehend that DiNozzo loves to pull her leg or as I believe you Americans would say, to yank her chain.” 

“Yes well… I do digress. So, I finished up my examination and gave Special Agent Gibbs a rough estimation of the time of death, all the while, blithely preparing to depart the scene to catch my flight to London. At that point, I was still blissfully unaware that it was anything other than a vicious and tragic killing. Sadly, it was not exactly an uncommon occurrence and to be honest, I was still inwardly chortling over getting to go to the Medical Examiner’s Conference rather than my stand-in, Dr Gutamon. 

“Meanwhile, Gibbs had been searching the young lady’s clothing for identification with my grudging blessing since the body had already been disturbed,” Ducky said, not even trying to disguise his indignation about the massive breach of procedure. It was one of his chief provocations during his long and mostly illustrious career as a medical examiner. It really shouldn’t be that hard for dim-witted law-enforcement personnel to understand – don’t touch the deceased until after the ME has said you could. It wasn’t rocket science but, in this case, he could understand why the Master at Arms had done so – she was covering her tracks. 

“Anyway,” he sighed, acknowledging the futility of pursuing these emotions at the moment, he continued, “Then Jethro stood up and announced that there was no ID. He told me that we had Lieutenant Jane Doe."

Ducky breathed deeply, remembering how that had been like someone had doused him in freezing-cold water when he wasn’t expecting it. “Abruptly, I felt a frisson of dread - like someone had walked over my grave as they say. I immediately thought back to how your killer had sworn in his note to return. I returned to the victim’s body, checking that no-one was paying me any heed, and swiftly checked the left side of the dead woman's neck, up near her ear. And there it was my dear… a trident which appeared to be a spookily exact replica of the one I found on your body. 

“I was dismayed of course but on the other hand, Jane, I’d hoped that this time we’d get a chance to get the better of him. Plus, once we had him in custody, I hoped that Jethro, with his unique interrogation style, might be able to convince the deviant to shed light on your identity, Jane. 

“I informed Mr Palmer that as soon as Jethro’s team had finished processing the scene, we should get the Lieutenant back to the morgue immediately. I left before anyone could question me, an action that the director, Thomas Morrow was quick to take me to task about after we’d closed the case. And rightly so; if I’d shared my suspicions that it may be the second in a series of killings, we could have set up surveillance to see if the killer would leave another note. 

“It was highly unprofessionally of me and really, I have no excuse,” Ducky said remorsefully. “I told Jethro it was because I didn’t want to go off half-cocked but if I am brutally honest, I didn’t want it to be your killer returning, Jane and have history repeat itself. However, my closeness to the case could have easily jeopardised our efforts to identify your killer and finding poor Miss Janice Santos’ killer too. 

“While a case could be made that being a Master at Arms, PO Cluxton automatically would have been privy to the surveillance operation and therefore she wouldn’t have left the note, it may not necessarily have played out that way. Jethro is such a paranoid personality that sometimes his left-hand doesn’t know what his right one is up to, so it is entirely feasible that he might have ordered his agents to carry out surveillance without informing the petty officer. The tragic thing is that we’ll never know.”

Deciding to continue with his pleasant wander, particularly the Crepe Myrtle Lawn and some of the other areas in the arboretum, Mallard rose sprightly, scooping up his precious burden. Strolling briskly in a westerly direction. Ducky resumed his musing as he walked. 

“Well, as I have often said my dear, there are some legitimate reasons why we’re supposed to recuse ourselves when we’re too close to a case to maintain sufficient objectivity. Director Morrow and Jethro were both at great pains to remind me of that protocol after the investigation. Of course, Thomas had a clear moral advantage over Gibbs, since the director has never overstepped the mark to my knowledge in terms over being involved in cases that he’d had a personal or a vested interest in. Jethro on the other hand, was a clear case of the kettle rushing in to accuse the pot of being black since he quite frequently allows his emotions and his personal life to interfere with investigations.”

“Ducky shook his head, stoically, knowing that Gibbs could break rules with impunity – for whatever reason he was untouchable. There were rules for everyone else and when it suited, no rules for the former Marine. 

“Ah well, I digress. We could put it down to my advancing years, but as you can bear witness, I’ve always been something of a raconteur,” he joked self-deprecatingly. 

“Anyway, I believe we were discussing how your killer was identified a decade after you were violated and murdered.” He said pensively. “After I found that bloody trident, I just knew that I had to go back and perform an autopsy on the newest Lieutenant Jane Doe. The Society of Medical Examiners conference be damned – this had my complete and undivided attention. I was determined not to let you down a second time, my dear child.”

Ducky looked momentarily chagrined, realising that he’d inadvertently used profanity. “Please accept my sincere apology for the use of such uncouth, boorish language, Miss Jane. Yes, I know compared to the foul language that passes for common speech in the new millennium, you’ll probably regard me as rather a quaint old fossil,” he said self-deprecatingly.

“However, I was brought up by a gentlewoman who taught me not to use foul language in the company of ladies, and for my sins, I’m a product of that upbringing. Victoria would want to tan my hide or wash my mouth out with soap if she heard me,” he said remorsefully. “Maybe both!” 

“So, I made haste back to my domain at the Navy Yards in DC, making excellent time so I could begin my examination of the newest victim immediately. I’m afraid I was extremely short-tempered with young Mr Palmer when he stepped out of the locker room, only to find that I was already well on the way to completing the autopsy. When he expressed surprise that it was I who was doing the examination and not my replacement, I fobbed him off, not willing to show my hand yet.

“I told him that I intended to catch a later flight. Of course, if I was convinced that the killer was the same monster who had defiled and murdered you, obviously I had no intention of leaving the case to anyone else. Still, at that point, I was holding my cards close to the chest. I suppose it was a sort of superstition. If I didn’t speak my fears out loud then they wouldn’t be happening.”

Chuckling sardonically, he said, “Who’d have believed that a man of science would be so quick to fall into childishly magical thinking like that? If you’d told me I would do something so irrational and irresponsible, I’d have laughed at you and said you were deluded at the very least.”

Ducky knew that there was no time to be wallowing in his guilt, this was not about him – it was about giving Jane closure. Sighing fatalistically, he picked up the story. “I’m afraid I was quite short with my young assistant, poor Mr Palmer. When he made the rather obvious statement that I’d started without him, looking like a wounded puppy, I fear that I rather bit his head off. I told him that he was my assistant as opposed to the other way around and that it was my prerogative to start without him. I was so cranky with him that I refused to let him assist me."

Frowning Ducky acknowledged. “Yes, I know I acted churlishly and although I apologised to him later, I do need to make amends. Perhaps I’ll invite him around to partake of one our Sunday baked dinners, although I’m not sure if James might consider dealing with the formidable Victoria Mallard to be more punishment than a peace offering. 

“Then again, he might bond with Mother over those blasted corgis of hers. James was working with a veterinary surgeon prior to him joining us at NCIS, so he probably likes dogs. Of course, it’s debatable if those pesky, yappy little, short-legged despots of Mother’s qualify as an exemplar of man’s best friend, though. I do so wish that Mother owned a bunch of steady easy-going Labradors or some curly-coated retrievers,” he complained wistfully. 

Returning to the case, he confessed, “Actually my dear it would be quite remiss of me if I didn’t confess to you that my faithful assistant wasn’t the only one to bear the brunt of my wrath. I’m afraid that I was also quite testy when I informed Abigail that I was sending Mr Palmer up with fingerprints, semen, and blood for her to analyse. I told her to be sure to sign the evidence exchange forms which I admit was highly insulting to impugn her professionalism like that as I certainly had no reason to doubt her. Yet I snarled at her – I told her that I’d check to make sure she did sign it, which was extremely rude of me.

“Abby told me that just as soon as she’d completed the explosive swab analysis she was working on for another case, that she’d be all over it. I was desperate to get the results, so churlishly, I yelled at her and told her to get all over it _now_ and slammed the phone down before she could reply. Mr Palmer was staring at me, aghast by my behaviour, and rightly so, and then I yelled at the poor lad again for not taking the evidence straight to the forensic lab.”

Ducky shook his head contritely. “I know, I know…I made a mess of things, didn’t I? The director pointed out very emphatically some of my shortcomings on the case. For example, I chose to conduct the autopsy on my own. That was something I'd never done in all the time Mr Palmer has worked for me. That fact alone, coupled with my angry outburst could have so easily compromised the case. If Petty Officer Cluxton had chosen to go before her peers instead of deciding to plead guilty, a competent JAG might have gotten her off, due to my actions.

“The defence could have used my uncharacteristic behaviour re the autopsy, along with my mad dash back to Norfolk Naval Base to retrieve semen samples from your autopsy for comparison purposes with Janice Santos’ autopsy. I failed to inform anyone what I was doing and that was highly irregular. Given my strong psychological need to find your killer they could say that there was a chance that I inadvertently tainted the evidence.”

Agitated, Ducky looked around at the crepe myrtle trees mass planted to create an outdoor room as he took a calming deep breath. Thankfully, the lovely garden of trees helped to calm his tumultuous feelings.

Changing the topic, he remarked admiringly, “I’m sure this must be an incredibly beautiful area in the summertime when all of these crepe myrtles are in flower and yet even without flowers I’ve always thought that the trunks and branches of crepe myrtles to be quite lovely. Their outer bark is shed all year round revealing their creamy smoothness underneath. An idyllic place to spend eternity.”

Ducky gazed around raptly, imagining the vista before him in mid to late summer when the myrtles would be a riot of crimsons, mauves, and fuchsias before giving himself a mental shake. “My apologies my dear, I fear I never explained why we’ve come here,” he said, addressing the wooden urn. “As you know, you’ve been with me for ten years now. You are the only Jane Doe that I was never able to identify. The only one whose family has no closure. The only one who never went home.

“I’ve kept you with me in the hopes that someday, somehow, I could finally identify you and let your family know what happened to you. Sadly, with the death of former machinist mate Harlen Wilson, that hope has all but died too, I afraid,” he said regretfully

“After much soul-searching, I’ve concluded that all these years, I might have been clutching at straws. It’s also plausible that Wilson might never have known who you were either,” Ducky pointed out, bowing his head in sorrow, his voice betraying how close he was to breaking down. 

“There may have been nothing pre-meditated about choosing you to take out his rage on. He may have run into you purely by chance somewhere and impulsively decided to attack. It’s equally plausible that you might not have had any family to miss you and to report you missing, which would explain why we could never identify you, despite our herculean efforts.

You may not even hail from the United States; you could have emigrated here or been a tourist and yet, I’ve steadfastly refused to consider any of those possibilities, until now.”

Shaking his head at his short-sightedness, Ducky admitted remorsefully. “As Thomas Morrow pointed out to me so articulately, my hubris in not letting you go so you could find the peace you deserve, could very easily have led to Miss Santos killer getting away with murder. That would have been a shocking breach of the oaths I took as a medical examiner. Thomas was quite within his rights to keelhaul me for my failure to act in an appropriate manner.” 

“The director also had some extremely harsh words for Agent Gibbs for getting swept up in my crusade. He told him that he really should have made sure everyone working the Santos case caught up by thoroughly reading and reanalysing the previous case file (yours) from ten years ago rather than just plunging in impetuously. Which is a fair criticism, and it is standard operating procedure in this type of situation, rather than relying on my recall and impressions since time, if not personal feelings do indeed tend to colour our memories.”

The ME paused a beat before conceding, “Even when they aren’t the albatross around our neck variety.” 

Smiling a little grimly as he admitted that painful truth, he continued laying himself bare. “As Thomas rightly noted, if that had been done and had Jethro permitted more discussion and more collaboration amongst the team, there may well have been a speedier resolution to the case. Timothy would probably have learnt that Cynthia Cluxton’s father was the NCIS agent in charge of your case.

“He already knew her father was an NCIS agent, just not the agent who led the case. If he’d known that and he’d shared that information with the team, it is quite conceivable the more experienced investigators would have found that situation to be much too implausible. They would have focused their attention on her immediately.” Ducky frowned, they got lucky, but solving cases shouldn’t depend on getting lucky.

“If they had been focused on the petty officer, it might have encouraged McGee to mention that PO Cluxton was not heterosexual. As it was, it was only Abby’s jealousy that Timothy and the petty officer were a little too friendly which was the catalyst for him revealing her sexual orientation. If they’d known earlier, when Anthony and Caitlin discovery that Miss Santos was lesbian would probably have set alarm bells ringing loudly as to a possible motive for her death. As Gibbs is wont to remind everyone, there’s no such thing as coincidence. Plus, Anthony, as a former cop is fond of pointing out, statistically a victim’s partner or their ex-partner is the most likely suspect to murder them.

Ducky paused, as if hearing a conversation that no one else was privy to, his head canted ever so slightly to the right. He appeared to listen before he responded wryly. “Yes, I know in this case that we got there in the end, but that was only because Harlan Wilson was dead and had been for more than a month, so it was clear that he couldn’t have killed her. That was pure good luck,” He told Jane pensively. 

“And as the director rightly pointed out, what if Wilson had still been alive? We would have arrested him, and he might have been convicted of both murders and I know you might feel that it would have served him right. However, Wilson’s defence attorney would probably have argued that I'd tainted the evidence due to being too emotionally involved,” and it would have been hard to dispute even if it wasn’t true, the medical examiner admitted.

“That could have been enough to cause jurors to have reasonable doubt, not only about Miss Santos’ murder but maybe yours as well. The other equally abhorrent scenario for me was if he'd been found guilty of both murders, Petty Officer Cluxton would have gotten away with murdering her former lover, which would have been just as much of a travesty too.” 

Ducky was silent for a long while as he contemplated how easily the case could have become a debacle, due to his failure to act professionally. It pained him to admit that it was more good luck than anything else that brought about such a good outcome in the end. He also didn’t want to think too hard about the fact that his burning desire to solve Jane Doe’s case had caused Anthony to break into the trailer where Harlen Wilson lived, even though he’d told Timothy that they wouldn’t be able to use any evidence they found in court. 

It clearly illustrated that letting someone work a crime that they were too invested in emotional and or professionally merely beget more lapses in protocols and that was why he should have recused himself and reported his suspicions to Gibbs immediately. He’d let everyone down and he was just inordinately lucky that they’d managed to solve both crimes even if Lieutenant Jane Doe remained unidentified. Steeling himself for this most difficult of conversations, he reminded himself that chickening out was not an option.

“It’s time for our relationship to change, my dear,” he told her gently but firmly. “I fear that it has become rather an unhealthy one, for both of us and that it’s not in either of our best interests for you to remain with me at NCIS anymore. It’s well beyond time to let you go so you can find peace in the afterlife, whatever that journey may be. It is also my sincere belief that the Forrest Lawn Cemetery is a place for you to begin that journey.

In case you were wondering about this place, it was established back in 1906 and it is the largest of Norfolk’s eight municipal cemeteries. The first white settlers who owned the tract of land for multiple generations – the Langleys, had a family burial ground here with internments dating back to the 1700s. 

“They tell me that the cemetery has more than 165 acres of land and that it is a natural arboretum containing over 70 species from around the world such as the impressive collection of crepe myrtles in this section where we are now,” he looked around him appreciatively. “Not to mention, the dogwoods which are one of my all-time favourite autumnal species. Although many people feel their main attraction is the spectacular display of white or pink flowers which are in fact bracts that herald the arrival of spring,” he informed her animatedly.

“They also have Chinese fringe trees here which are quite breathtaking when they are in bloom.” Ducky was completely caught up in his enthusiasm and his eagerness to pass on his often-arcane knowledge. After all, wasn’t very often that he had an opportunity to address such a captive audience as his charge, who proved to be a very accommodating companion over the years. 

“Did you know that the Chinese fringe tree is dioecious – meaning that they have male and female plants,” he enthused. “For the female plant to produce fruit, a male plant is required for pollination; coincidentally holly, another dioecious plant is also a feature here at Forest Lawn. Plus, they also have black walnut trees, and a quite impressive variety of oaks and maples which makes for a lovely tranquil place, my dear.”

Taking a breath, he continued to share the knowledge he’d acquired with her. “In addition to the notable gardens and its collection of tree and shrub species, it boasts a wonderful example of Art Deco era memorial architecture in the community mausoleum which was designed by Sidney Lovell and they built it in 1919. I believe that Lovell was a Chicago architect who specialised in theatre design and according to my research, the mausoleum is an excellent example of his work. Its exterior facade and interior fittings consist of high-quality Alabama marble and inside there are ornately carved marble benches plus it features a Frank Lloyd Wright skylight. We’ll visit it soon,” Ducky said cheerily. 

As he made his way across the Cedar lawn at a leisurely pace, the medical examiner would stop when a gravesite or a plant caught his interest and he would provide Jane with a running commentary of what took his fancy. This including the usual funerary art you’d expect to see in a cemetery. Mostly in this section of the cemetery, they were angelic symbols in bas relief or statuary but there was the odd depiction of Hermes, Mercury or even one or two depicting the Valkyries (female flying figures) and even a surprising appearance of Anubis, all who'd been depicted as guides taking of souls to the afterlife. Although there were some unexpectedly anthropomorphic portrayals of psychopomps too, most of them avian but with the odd canine or equine contribution thrown in for good measure. 

As he made his way towards the Community Mausoleum via Holly Circle and along the Spruce Lawn, Ducky realised why some people were so fascinated with visiting cemeteries, particularly historic ones. There was even a name for those enthusiasts – they were known as taphophiles and Dr Mallard, who spent much of his working life around cadavers and death didn’t find it macabre or gruesome in the slightest. He considered it a rather quaint and harmless hobby actually and he was rather enjoying his small taste of it immensely. 

Still, needs must, as they say, Ducky reminded himself pensively, ambling across the Spruce Lawn, clutching onto Jane Doe’s urn carefully. “I supposed you're wondering why I thought you should be interned in Norfolk. There are many fine establishments around the District of Colombia, after all. Some not too far from the Navy Yards or even several in the vicinity of Reston, Virginia near me.”

Pausing, he breathed deeply before soldiering on stoically. “Truth is, that I did consider it. I thought about it long and hard, but I remembered the director’s admonishment to me. I acted in a highly intemperate and extraordinarily unprofessional manner which could easily have meant that Janice Santos’ killer got off scot-free.”

Ducky paused to take in the community mausoleum, it’s gleaming Alabama marble sparkled in the afternoon sunshine. Proceeding inside, he was uncharacteristically silent as he took in the stained-glass skylight – the work of the well known architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, a talented multifaceted man. He fancifully imagined that Frank Lloyd Wright and Leonardo DaVinci might have had some quite enthralling discussions, had they’d been contemporaries. 

Exiting the art deco structure, he felt a sudden yen to visit the historic Langley family burial plot while he was here, so he strolled east, admiring the duality of this place which made it stand out from other cemeteries he’d been to. Along with the typically structured lawn cemetery characteristics, namely order, uniformity and organization, it harmonized pleasingly with a more natural, less manicured natural landscape. For example, the outer topography along with the choice of plantings was quite rugged at times, making the place feel more like a nature reserve and less like a place of melancholia and brood death. 

Resuming their discussion, he told Jane, “If I am to finally let go of my guilt in not being able to identify you then I need to truly let you go, too. If you were interned closer to work or my home, I fear I’d be impelled to visit you regularly which, would impede my ability to put your case to rest. It would also prevent you from finding peace, safe in the knowledge your killer cannot harm anyone else. 

“Unfortunately, there are still plenty of monsters like Harlen Wilson and victims that need justice out there. As I demonstrated last week, I cannot risk potentially compromising those investigations. We were lucky this time, but Thomas told me he can’t risk it happening again.

“He gave me an ultimatum,” Ducky confessed seriously. “He ordered me to resolve my guilt issues, re your death or to hang up my rib cutters permanently. I admit I was momentarily angered by his directive, along with more than a little shocked but, in hindsight, he was well within his rights. Unresolved grief and guilt are extremely strong, destructive emotions which are a liability in this job. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t feel guilt over our failures because if you can’t, then frankly you have no humanity and shouldn’t be doing this job. And yet too much grief or guilt will hobble you and make it impossible to do your job competently; the key is trying to retain a balance which I’ll admit isn’t easy to achieve.”

“So, after an hour or two of railing against the high-handedness of Director Morrow I pulled my head out of my nether regions and sought the services of a colleague of mine, Maya Richardson, an eminent grief therapist. I frequently recommend her services to grief-stricken families of my patients and, I’m happy to report that she deserves her excellent reputation. She’s good!” he said decidedly.

“After confiding in her, she helped me to accept that my guilt is normal but also high unproductive. Maya made me see that I can honour your memory more effectively helping other victims whose voices have been silenced, to find justice for what has happened to them. The good doctor suggested that if you were interred somewhere so you can find peace but not too close to DC, it would help me in letting you go. And I think that Maya was right… hence Forest Lawn Cemetery,” he said glancing around him with a smile. 

“Plus, there is a distinct possibility that you had some connection with Norfolk at some point in your life. Perhaps you worked here, or you might have been born and grown up here and was visiting someone when you died. But even if that isn’t the case and you were just literally passing through when Wilson attacked you, it is still a beautiful part of the country.”

As he paused to regain his breath, he confessed, “Plus while I cannot know if you still have any surviving family, I can ensure that you have a surrogate family of sorts, my dear. I’ve spoken at length to Janice Santos’ parents about you. They know that if it wasn’t for your tragic death and the exhaustive, but the ultimately fruitless quest for justice for you, Cynthia Cluxton might have gotten away with Janice’s heinous murder. 

“Mr and Mrs Santos feel indebted to you and, they want your ashes to be interred with their daughter. Janice will be buried next Wednesday in a picturesque plot down at the Linden Lawn. They intend to add your name to her headstone, and they’ll visit you both regularly and keep the gravesite well-tended since they live here in Norfolk, as do several of Janice’s siblings. They vowed that you wouldn’t be forgotten; they’re good honest people, so I’m comfortable leaving you in their faithful care. I think you will be happy here.”

Appearing to listen to an unseen individual, he nodded a little regretfully. “Yes, I know it isn’t perfect, Jane. I wanted to find your family and let them know why you never came home. Yet I’ve finally come to an acceptance that it’s unlikely to ever happen, for various reasons over which I have no control. You might not even be a US citizen; you might have come from anywhere in the world, and unless someone comes searching for you, I don’t expect we will ever truly know.” 

Ducky addressed the urn sorrowfully but with a resolute acceptance too. Maya had made him see that he had done everything humanly possible and that it was simply the way it was. _Sometimes life sucks_ , was how she put it rather pithily and succinctly. 

“At least now you’ve been welcomed by Miss Santos’ family to become a part of theirs. So, I think that given the fact that we solved your murder, albeit too late for Lady Justice to mete out a worldly punishment, this is the best possible ending to a tragic situation. We must hope and pray that Harlen Wilson’s retribution is visited upon him in the afterlife and that his punishment lasts for a very long time,” Ducky retorted with more than a little touch of vindictiveness mixed in with optimism for justice to prevail.

“So, before we bid each other goodbye, shall we take one last stroll together down to the Linden Lawn to check out your final resting place, dear child?” 

Ducky headed back towards Holly Circle, feeling more and more confident with every passing step that he was doing the right thing. Thomas Morrow was right to issue him with an ultimatum. This was difficult, but he knew that if he didn’t let Jane Doe go, the guilt would simply continue to eat away at him, eventually compromising other victims’ quests for justice. Thomas knew he’d never recover should such an event come to pass; that not even his illustrious career would be able to appease his conscience. 

Ducky also suspected that unless the director had given him an ultimatum, he wouldn’t have been able to let go of his failure to put a name to Jane’s body. Which was why he was sure that Morrow had acted with great perspicacity for all concerned. When he got back to DC, Ducky fully intended to buy Director Morrow a bottle of whisky. Not just any scotch - a bottle of Glenfiddich Gran Reserva Scotch Whisky, a single malt that was aged for 21 years. Ducky felt it would convey a tangible expression of his remorse at his appalling professional lapse and his eternal gratitude that Morrow had given him a well-deserved kick in the pants, forcing him to man up. 

He knew that Thomas’ grandfather was a proud Scot from Aberdeen and that Thomas’ father had emigrated to the US, so it came as no surprise that the director’s tipple was single malt whisky and Ducky knew that Glenfiddich was his preferred brand. Ducky smiled as he recalled Morrow stomping into Autopsy in a fearful strop one day. He’d sought Ducky out purely for the purposes of complaining that his lovely Irish-born wife, Lynette had used his Glenfiddich to make up a batch of homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur for a dinner party at their home. 

The liqueur, usually consisted of cream, cocoa and Diageo Irish whiskey had proved to be highly popular with his dinner guests, declaring it wonderfully smooth, the best they’d ever had. Swallowing down his mirth which he intuited the director wouldn’t appreciate, Ducky thought that it was hardly a surprise he was incensed, declaring it to be a monstrous waste of his expensive single malt Scotch. 

Unfortunately, Ducky hadn’t been able to contain himself, flippantly remarking he should be grateful that Lynette hadn’t used 26-year-old Glenfiddich Excellence that cost $400. He was correct - Thomas hadn’t seen anything amusing about the episode and likely still didn’t. No one got between a Scotsman and his whisky. Still, he was sure the director would appreciate receiving a bottle of his favourite drop as a token of Ducky’s gratitude for helping him move on. 

As Ducky and his precious charge proceeded to the Linden Lawn section, he started to regale Jane with a lecture on the stunning linden trees that surrounded him. 

“This is quite glorious is it not, my dear? As you may know, linden trees develop a broad crown that landscape gardeners often choose for its generous shade and shelter. Although it’s slow-growing, certain sub-species of the linden tree can attain a majestic height of 130 feet, probably why it’s favoured in public areas as its full size is too large for many private residences. While most linden trees live for a few hundred years, there are several specimens across the world believed to be more than a thousand years old?” he enthused as he admired the array of linden trees which embraced the rows and rows of gravesites. 

Continuing to extoll the virtues of the noble linden, Ducky continued in his pedagogical mode, “In summer, the linden tree’s broad canopy provides dappled shade, allowing just enough sunlight for flowers and shade grasses to flourish on the ground below. In autumn, the tree’s large, asymmetrical, heart-shaped leaves with pointed tips and an average diameter of around 6 to 20 centimetres take on a beautiful golden hue before eventually dropping, leaving a golden carpet of leaves on the ground below. In the springtime the linden blossoms consisting of masses of tiny, cream to yellow coloured clusters of flowers are abundant, keeping honey-bees busy producing linden honey renowned for its healing and health-giving qualities.”

Glancing around at the majestic trees, often referred to in parts of the UK as lime trees, not to be confused with the citrus variety, Ducky felt that this was a delightful sanctuary to spend eternity. It was an infinitely better option than buried anonymously in potter’s field or even just dwelling on a shelf in his rather dour office in Autopsy, with its artificial lighting and a dearth of sunshine or birdsong. Yes, Jane would find peace here he felt sure. 

Looking at his watch, he realised that it was approaching the 3 o’clock appointment which he’d made to meet with the funeral director who was organising Miss Santos’ burial service so he could relinquish custody of his charge. Sighing, he turned, walking toward the front gates where the office was situated, confident he’d made the right decision, even if with their inevitable parting, it was tinged with a touch of melancholy. Ten years was a bloody long time to be together! 

Remembering Maya’s sagacious counsel, he steeled himself for the parting, telling her kindly, “It’s not the home you knew in this life, but I think you’ll find peace here.”

As he headed back to meet with the mortician, Mr Hubert Cross, he realised in all of his ramblings, locomotory and verbally, he’d neglected to tell his long-time companion the finer details of how they’d solved the case. Well the two cases actually, that had brought them here to Norfolk, preparing for a parting of the ways. Deciding that it would provide them with an appropriate topic of conversation upon which to end their time together, he launched into a garrulous account of the rest of the NCIS investigation. 

As they neared the office, Ducky noted that the brisk pace he’d set had ensured that they were early for the funeral director. Glad to have a few minutes of respite from his long but enjoyable constitutional, he sank down gratefully on one of the stone benches that dotted the garden landscape. Sighing thankfully, he continued to fill Jane in on the last part of the case. 

“So, as I was saying, once we figured out that the killer had probably been incarcerated, young Timothy was assigned to check out possible suspects who had been recently released.

Of course, that was how we found Harlen Wilson who had, at that point, been dead for six weeks. Fortunately, Anthony and Timothy, being highly competent agents, persuaded his brother to give them Harlen’s hairbrush which had hair for DNA comparison which allowed it to be compared to the original DNA left at your crime scene, Jane. That hairbrush was literally what cracked the case wide open – that and Caitlin and Anthony managed to identify of Miss Santos. She was a musician in a band working at a gay bar near the navy base. When the team learnt from Timothy that he strongly suspected that Cynthia Cluxton was a lesbian, things started falling into place rather rapidly.

“Of course, prior to tha,t Caitlin learnt the petty officer who’d discovered the first body, PO Ian Goetz had been assigned to the aircraft carrier Teddy Roosevelt ten years ago. He had been a suspect in SA Dawes investigation, and he was still serving in the navy. Goetz had since been promoted to a chief petty officer, who coincidentally was now serving aboard the same ship as the seamen that discovered the latest body, the Abraham Lincoln. Gibbs ordered him to be brought in and questioned, naturally but he volunteered to give a DNA sample which proved he was not the killer.”

Ducky pursed his lips together as he mused about the extraordinary coincidence of the person who discovered Jane’s body also just happened to arrive back at Norfolk after six months at sea on the very same night as Janice Santos was strangled. It did beggar belief, even in the most credulous of intellects. 

“You have to wonder about the odds of Goetz and his proximity to both crime scenes, my dear. Upon reflection, I can’t help but ask myself if Cynthia was deliberately cultivating that ingenuous overly keen-to-learn persona just to make people underestimate her. 

“The reason I say that is because it would seem to be extremely coincidental that Janice was killed the very same night that CPO Goetz docked at Norfolk after a six-month deployment. She would likely have access to that information as Master at Arms, I feel sure. And yes, my dear child, I do realise that it would mean that her killing of Janice was entirely premeditated and not a crime of passion, which for some reason seems to be somewhat less wicked.” The normally youthful looking ME Ducky seemed much older than his years as he contemplated this horrendous scenario. 

As a sharp breeze cut through the area, he adjusted his slightly battered and much-loved fedora and resettled his scarf a little more snuggly around his neck. November afternoons could be quite nippy, and he had no desire to take a chill. He had too many people depending upon him, including his mother, Victoria Mallard. 

“Equally, I can’t help but question if she’d learnt about Chief Goetz from her father’s case files or maybe from his private notes on the investigation after his death. No files are supposed to be removed from NCIS but even if they deny it, many agents still keep personal files of cases they worked, especially unsolved ones. Philip Dawes could have had suspicions regarding Harlen Wilson as a suspect, even if he didn’t voice them officially,” Ducky suggested broodingly. 

“It seems far too convenient that he just happened to be released from jail before she decided to copy his MO, don’t you think, Jane? If she had been investigating her father’s case on her own and he’d had his eyes on Wilson then it’s even possible that she knew he was incarcerated in Canada and that he was being released” he mused smiling a little sadly at the thought that this would be the last time he used Jane as his sounding board. Stoically, he continued to finish a tale which was ten years in the making – Jane deserved to know. 

“When we gathered in Abby's lab the next day, she’d managed to run all of the DNA comparisons in record time. Our resident Goth had really come through for us once again. She reported that the DNA on the first note matched the sperm sample from your rapist, Jane proving that the note was authored or at least handled by your killer. There are no fingerprints and no DNA on the second note, however. She’d concluded the handwriting on the two notes might be the same, but since unlike ballistics, it isn’t her forte, she wisely sent copies to a forensic handwriting expert to analyse. Postscript – the handwriting expert confirmed that the notes were written by two different individuals.

“What else?” Ducky asked rhetorically. “Ah yes, the DNA sample, which was volunteered by Chief Petty Officer Goetz; the suspect who discovered your body. It didn’t match the sperm sample, or the DNA left on the first note or the second scene either. It was the DNA from Harlan Wilson's hairbrush which was a match for the sperm I had collected from you and Janice Santos post-mortem. Of course, this was good and bad news since it looked as if we had finally found your killer but not Miss Santos’ killer since Wilson had been dead for approximately six weeks before she died. That made it quite impossible for him to have been her killer. 

That was when our young probie, Timothy McGee had the inspired idea that Wilson's semen could have been inserted into Janice’s vagina after Santos was murdered.”

Ducky frowned, briefly. “It was an excellent hypothesis, although, on a side note, I am beginning to have some serious reservations about Caitlin’s squeamishness. She was quite appalled when he floated the possibility. As she considers herself a psychological profiler, her prudishness seems to be at odds with the role of a profiler, particularly as much of the work of your average profiler focuses on serial killers who tend to be sexual sadists.

“I just don’t see how she can hope to be an effective profiler on the MCRT if she’s going so grossed out by the possibility that a killer might plant semen on a dead body rather than leave it behind by ejaculating,” he confided to his charge with a touch of disdain. 

“Anyhow, putting aside my somewhat improper expression of my doubt about a colleague’s skill for now,” Ducky told her ruefully, “After McGee floated his theory about how the sperm came to be at a crime scene, Jethro raised an extremely pertinent point. He wanted to know if McGee’s theory was correct, how had the murderer obtained the semen of a man who was already dead. 

“Of course, there were several means of obtaining biological samples, however, I decided to employ Occam’s razor theory to the puzzle. In this case, the most likely explanation was that someone had obtained the sperm the same way that I had for comparison purposes when I drove down to the Norfolk FO after completing Miss Santos’ post-mortem to retrieve one of the samples I’d collected when I performed your autopsy ten years ago.”

Ducky was on a roll now, cognizant that time was slipping swiftly through his fingers as he tried to finish his account. “Once we decided that it was a viable line of enquiry, it was simply a matter of reviewing video surveillance of the evidence room where Harlen Wilson's sperm was stored. We started from the day before the murder, intending on going back day by day. That proved to be unnecessary, though as McGee recognised the petty officer on the video almost immediately and remembered that Cluxton was her mother’s name and her father was none other than Special Agent Dawes. As I’m sure you know, Dawes was the lead agent investigating your case, Jane.

“So, at that point, we knew who, how and when Miss Santos had died but we didn’t know why. When Timothy dropped the bombshell that although he didn’t ask and PO Cluxton didn’t tell, he believed she was gay. Which caused the penny to drop with Agent DiNozzo; Anthony explained that although Miss Santos’ apartment had been completely sanitised, she’d been working in a lesbian bar and the odds were that she could well be gay too. After speaking with her friends and family, that theory was confirmed and we learnt she had recently broken up with a girlfriend who was in the navy and that it had been rather acrimonious,” Ducky shook his head sadly. 

“Once Jethro had the petty officer in interrogation, it was all over bar the shouting. And there was quite a bit of it from Cynthia when faced with the proof that the man she set up couldn’t have killed Janice. She cracked under the pressure and confessed, albeit it unwillingly. And that my dear, is how we came to solve not just your heinous murder but Janice’s killing too. If she hadn’t made it look like Wilson had struck again, or if the killing had taken place when was alive, the manipulative fiend could have gotten away with murder,” Ducky concluded grimly. His usually gentle blue eyes glaring fiercely at his shoes as he contemplated how close it had come to that happening.

“Honestly, there isn’t much more to tell, but as I mentioned earlier, after the cases had been put to bed, Thomas summoned Myself and Jethro and yielded a rather large stick. Primarily it was directed at me for failing to follow procedure allowing myself and the MCRT to get too caught up in a case and he was completely within his rights to do that. Plus, he excoriated Gibbs as well for jumping right into the case without a formal review by the whole team of the case file. He said that Jethro just dived right in and although we caught the killer in the end, had the situation been different, we could easily have had a most unsatisfactory outcome.

“Thomas rightly pointed out that if Jethro’s leadership style encouraged more collaboration and less of the authoritarian head smacks and yelling at people for wasting precious seconds during an investigation, it might have made a difference. McGee might have mentioned to his teammates that the Master at Arms was Special Agent Dawes, daughter. They would have known after reading the case file that he was the lead agent on her case and with her involvement in the new killing, it would have made then suspicious. Plus, in a more cooperative less competitive workplace, Timothy might have mentioned much earlier that he thought she was gay. The only reason it ended up coming to light was that Abby believed Cynthia and Timothy had been sleeping together and was jealous. 

If the team had known either of those facts sooner, it would surely have sent up red flags, when combined with how she moved the body, that she “happened” to find the second letter left after Miss Santos’ death. Then there was her determination to be present when the note was examined forensically, which was rather suspicious. If that vile, evil monster Harlen Wilson hadn’t died well before the killing, we may never have caught on that there was a second killer. It is strangely ironic, though, that he ended up being the catalyst to her getting caught,” Ducky offered with a grim sense of satisfaction.

Looking up, he saw Hubert Cross emerge through the rather ostentatious entryway of the main office and glance around. Well, it was a place where people went to memorialise their loved ones, therefore grandiose architecture and a psychopompic depictions in the cemetery’s funerary art and statuary were the norm and probably comforting to the grieving relatives and friends. No doubt they’d find reassurance in the universal theme of animals, spirits and angels portrayed in multiple religions and cultures escorting the newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.

As he knew, the word psychopomp was derived from the Greek word psychopompós, literally meaning the guide of souls. It was the role of psychopomps to guide people, they were not there to offer judgement, so were usually seen as comforting figures to most individuals. Well, Ducky thought wryly, the exception was the Grim Reaper – society’s current depiction of a psychopomp. He had definite negative undertones should you ask most people, especially when compared to depictions of an ethereal angel messenger. 

Anyway, he supposed it was a moot point, seeing that his Jane Doe had been dead for a decade, although if such beings did exist, perhaps Miss Santo’s guide might make an exception and help Jane find her way home too. Otherwise, this is not a bad place to spend eternity. 

Knowing that their time to say goodbye was rapidly approaching, Ducky told her soothingly, “It’s time for our relationship to change, my dear. It’s time for you to go home. It’s not the home you knew in this life, but I think you’ll find peace here.”

Standing, as the funeral director come down the steps to receive Jane’s cremains, Dr Mallard realised that the overwhelming sense of responsibility which he’d carried around with him for so long was gone. In its place was a feeling of freedom he hadn’t known in years.

Ducky told her gently, “And the way things turned out, so will I.” 

With deference typical of how he treated all those who entered his morgue, the veteran medical examiner surrendered the urn to the mortician care, feeling a softly feminine-like sense of peace and acceptance embrace him like a warm hug. He sensed that Jane was happy that she'd be laid to rest here, knowing her brutal murderer was identified, finally, and she was trying to tell him that. Hopefully, while she found well-deserved peace here, Wilson would encounter the retribution that he’d eluded in his mortal life. Ducky may not be a fire and brimstone kind of guy, but he sincerely hoped it included something along the lines of Dante’s nine circles of hell. Former machinist mate Harlen Wilson richly deserved eternal suffering for his crimes. 

Ducky turned and walked resolutely away from the funeral director solemnly offering up a valediction to Jane. To the only victim, he'd failed to identify.

His cultivated English accent seamlessly fading away, replaced by the gentle Scottish burr of his homeland as he wished her an old Gaelic blessing of peace.

The peace of joys,

The peace of lights,

The peace of consolations.

The peace of souls,

The peace of heaven, 

The peace of the virgins.

The peace of the fairy bowers,

The peace of the peacefulness, 

The peace of the everlasting.”

Dr Mallard was confident that Jane would find safe harbour here at the Norfolk Forest Lawn Cemetery. After all, she was in fine company here. The Army's 111th Field Artillery Battalion and 29th Infantry Division Memorials had soldiers interred here who gave their lives during World War II in Normandy, Northern France, the Rhineland, and Central Europe from 1944-1945 too. He also knew that the Seaman’s Friend Society had purchase plots at Forest Lawn and paid for internment fees so that sailors who passed away at sea or died after docking here, could be laid to rest if no family claimed them. 

He exited the imposing double gates of the lawn cemetery. Sliding into his beloved Morgan which he'd rebuilt with his own hands, he looked back one last time.

Dr Donald Mallard closed his eyes as he uttered a final prayer for Lieutenant Jane Doe, Legal Name: unknown, DOB: unknown, DOD:12th November 1994, so long entrusted to his care.

“I know you’re not in the US Navy, my dear because there was no match on your fingerprints, although you could have been a civilian sailor. I guess we’ll never know. Nevertheless, with that possibility in mind and my professional relationship with the US Navy, on your final journey, my wish for you, dear Jane is _for fair winds and following seas and long may your big jib draw.”_

Finis

End notes

Just wanted to say that I have never actually been to the Forest Lawn Cemetery, Norfolk. Any mistakes in this story about the cemetery are due to a lack of online data: feel free to let me know (politely) so I can fix it. 

Definition of psychopomp - a conductor of souls to the underworld or afterlife.


	5. Giving Gibbs The Finger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting tag #5 to the Bone Yard in the last hour of 2020 as we, along with NZ, are among the first nations to herald in 2021. Like everyone else around the world we're hoping the new year will be a much better one for all. Heartfelt thanks to all the essential services workers who risked their own lives this year to protect other people. Stay safe everyone and have a happy new year.

Series: There’s Always Tom Morrow (Series Two)

Title: Giving Gibbs The Finger

Episode: The Boneyard

Characters: Tom Morrow, Anthony DiNozzo, Caitlin Todd, Timothy McGee, Ric Balboa, OC Roz Goldstein

Special Agent Tony DiNozzo stared at the director, staggered by his statement and immediately deciding that he must have imagined it. Shaking his head silently as if to try to clear it, he said, "My bad, Director. I don’t think I heard you correctly. Could you repeat what you said…and maybe speak more slowly?”

Tom Morrow grinned evilly. Enunciating slowly, he said, “The Secretary of Defence has seconded Special Agent Gibbs to Army CID for the next six months working with Gunnery Sargent, John Alan DeLuca as an NCIS liaison and then assigned for a further six-month stretch to work with AFOIS as the NCIS liaison, effective immediately.”

Okay, that was what he thought the director had said but it was far too phantasmagorical for him to have believed it the first time. Hell - Tony didn’t believe it the second time around either. Maybe he had a concussion, and this was some kind of totally freaky hallucination. Either that or he was dreaming! Yep, that’s what was going on…a dream made perfect sense.

Chuckling sardonically, the director leaned forward and asked, “Would it help if I pinched you, Special Agent DiNozzo?” 

Tony, who’d been reaching for a glass of water to sip started to choke when Tom made his kindly offer, noting that the young investigator looked as if he thought he was losing his mind. Looking at the director quizzically, DiNozzo wondered if he’d spoken his thoughts out loud. An even more disturbing prospect was that Morrow been replaced by some freaky mind-reading alien who was intent on taking over the earth. Normally, Tony wasn’t exactly into SciFi scenarios but if Morrow was an evil alien clone who could read minds, then he reasoned that by definition it wasn’t science fiction – it was science fact!

There was another explanation that belatedly occurred to him, albeit an extremely unpalatable one. He was losing his mind; this was in effect some sort of break with reality. After all, there was a family history of mental instability, he reminded himself. His uncle had become convinced he was one of the mole people who inhabited golf courses – who knew, right? If that wasn’t bad enough, both his parents were alcoholics plus, his mother was addicted to antidepressants… so it did make sense that he was going mad, he reasoned. The only trouble was though that he couldn’t decide if being stark raving mad was a more, or a less palatable option than a mind-reading alien creature from outer space taking over NCIS. 

Honestly, the thought of going crazy was something that filled DiNozzo with bowel-loosening terror, since it would ultimately mean that he’d lost control. Being out of control was a state he was desperate to avoid at all cost since he had an irrational fear of being seen by friends and workmates alike as being weak. And wasn’t going crazy the absolute epitome of weakness? 

Having an abusive father when he was a kid, who was constantly reiterated his theories that DiNozzo’s didn’t cry, didn’t pass out since that would make them weak and pathetic certainly helped shape his attitudes about being in control. Plus, working with Gibbs who snarled, and head slapped him if he apologised (because saying sorry according to his boss was a sign of weakness) probably wasn’t all that helpful either. Not unless it was intended to fuel his over-the-top irrational fear of being seen as feeble of mind/and or character, in which case – mission accomplished.

Even feeling the director giving him a short sharp pinch on the hand wasn’t truly enough proof to convince Tony that he wasn’t: a) imagining things b) dreaming c) hallucinating or d) all the above. However, experiencing the pain did cause him to speculate if there might be a final option to consider – that this little tête-à-tête was the real thing!

Sighing patiently, realising DiNozzo need a few minutes to get his head around the situation, Morrow flicked on his office intercom, telling his Personal Assistant, “Please have Special Agent Balboa come up to my office if he’s not too busy, Cynthia.” 

As they waited, Tony thought about the last case that they’d just wrapped up last night (the one which had seemingly caused this massive blowback) before they’d been directed to work on cold cases today. Tony had been instructed to supervise the other team members as Gibbs was kept busy with meetings with the director and what the scuttlebutt had deemed to be a bunch of suits from the FBI. Tony was reliably informed by a trusted source that one of the Fibbies was none other than the Assistant Director Doug Kerns; a real bastard, according to anyone who had the misfortune to work for him. The bullpen had been rife with gossip and speculation all day as Gibbs continued absence didn’t go unnoticed.

Cate and McGee contributed to the general hysteria in the bullpen by throwing out wild theories about what was going on. Not that they’d even come close as it turned out, although to be fair, Tony was pretty sure no one would see this coming! Not even a profiler who worked on the president’s protection team.

Tony had downplayed the situation as they reviewed cold cases, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t genuinely concerned about what was happening to Gibbs. He was, but it wouldn’t help anyone to press the panic button. Besides, Gibbs hadn’t earned the Teflon Gibbs moniker without good cause; it was said he knew where the bodies were buried!

If he had to hazard a guess, DiNozzo speculated whatever he was being grilled over, involved their last case as Gibbs had seen fit to fake the suicide of his buddy, Special Agent Tobias Fornell. The fact that it had been staged in the FBI’s own holding cells and almost certainly involved the Boss going all lone wolf AGAIN and failing to inform TPTB of his intentions, was typical of Gibbs’ high-handedness. Tony guessed there were a lot of pretty pissed off Fibbies wanting a piece of him for that little stunt. 

Tony had shaken his head at that boneheaded move but seriously, no one could ever accuse Gibbs of being a team player. Even after he’d found the FBI mole no one would be killing themselves to hand him a medal for his outstanding effort. Particularly after Little Ricky’s attorney had the case against the mafia Don’s son thrown out on a technicality and was threatening to sue NCIS for unlawful arrest of his client.

Of course, this staging of Fornell’s death had been a doozy – even Tony hadn’t seen that one coming, although he knew from being his partner that Gibbs suspected that someone close to Tobias in his agency was the mafia’s mole. Having spent a quite a bit his career as a cop investigating the Mafia and taking down a mob boss and pretty much his entire family back in Philly PD, Agent Charles stuck out kind-a like a sore thumb as being a likely candidate. Other factors were pointing to the agent with the great big sad puppy dog eyes being the guilty one; his standing around joking in MTAC, quoting classic dialogue from Mafia movies just after arresting and charging Tobias was at best, insensitive. 

So okay, Tony had joked around too but hell, at least he had good reason to bear a grudge against Fornell – he still hadn’t forgiven the FBI agent for tossing him out onto the beltway at night while he was zipped up inside a body bag. Tony was damned lucky all he received out of that cockup was some bruising and soft tissue injuries because he could have so easily been pulverised beneath the wheels of a speeding Double B truck hauling ass. If an NCIS agent had been taken into custody, accused of being dirty, Tony sure as hell wouldn’t have been feeling like joking around like Agent Charles was about the damned lookout and his uncanny resemblance to a TV actor – Abe Vigoda.

So okay, the Mob henchman, codenamed Abe bore a rather striking resemblance to the guy who was best known in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather playing Salvatore Tessio and later on the Barney Miller TV sitcom playing Phil Fish. It also didn’t escape Tony’s notice that he also bore a striking similitude to Agent Charles. Both men had the same lugubrious air about them and large doleful eyes that had DiNozzo checking to see if there was some familial relationship between the pair. 

Not surprisingly, he’d learnt from his mob sources that they were distant cousins, which in large Italian families wasn’t exactly proof of a crime and Lord knows, Tony’s old man was not exactly a model citizen. At best DiNozzo Senior was a conman, at worst his sperm donor was guilty of financial fraud and tax evasion, if not actual money laundering. However, even if Tony shared half his old man’s DNA, that didn’t make him dirty just because Senior was, and it wasn’t enough to condemn Agent Charles, either. Still, the fact was someone in the FBI who was close to Fornell was giving Jimmy Nap inside information so he could avoid being convicted, even though he was as crooked as any of the mob bosses Tony put away when he was working undercover with Philly and Baltimore police departments.

Of course, like any good thriller or whodunit, the bad guy or in Gibbs’ parlance, the dirtbag, was always the person you least expected. So, Tony thought it was pretty obvious who was the most likely suspect to be the FBI’s mole, and as much as Fornell rubbed him up the wrong way, it wasn’t Tobias. 

Gibbs must have thought the same thing because aside from the medical examiner from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, plus the FBI agent who supervised the holding cells, the only other persons who were there when Fornell was pronounced dead at the scene was Gibbs and Special Agent Charles. Tony never believed that the agent-in-charge of the holding-cells, or the medical examiner could seriously be considered persons of interest in the case. That left Agent Charles of the big woeful eyes as the corrupt agent - QED. 

As the chief suspect, it was key to Gibbs’ sting that the mole view Fornell’s corpse and pass on the information to Napolitano that the FBI agent was dead, shoring up his position in the FBI. The sting’s success rested on the mole’s belief he wasn’t under suspicion. Of course, Agent Charles investigating and ‘having to arrest Tobias had been quite a smart move. Plus, it gave him the chance to establish that he believed Fornell was innocent and the mob had chosen to set him up at this time because he was vulnerable after pushing for Gibbs’ meeting to take place with Ari Haswari, their prize asset. Unfortunately for Tobias, the Boss had put a slug in Ari’s shoulder as payback for shooting him. 

Not that Gibbs had wanted to hear from Charles that he might bear some responsibility for Fornell’s current job woes though. The boss was never one to apologise or even have regrets as far as Tony could tell. Honestly, Tony had doubts it ever occurred to Gibbs that he might miscalculate or just plain get something wrong, an attitude which took some big balls, he’d mused as he glanced at the two junior agents reading old case files. 

Tony thought about Gibbs’ completely uncharacteristic determination to take the FBI agent with him to the meeting with the Mafia don for the exchange of the FBI informant’s identity for his son’s freedom. Neither Cate nor McGee could appreciate the true extent of Gibbs abhorrence of and refusal to work with agents from other alphabets - with the grudging exception of Tobias Fornell of course. But Tony understood how atypical it was for Gibbs to volunteer to take someone as a backup (who wasn’t on his team) without having a gun aimed at his head or other methods of coercion. The fact he'd suggested it was enough of a clue as to what he was thinking. It was so unusual it immediately tipped off Tony that Agent Charles was within Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs’ sniper sights as the prime suspect.

DiNozzo didn’t blame the two rookie NCIS agents for not comprehending how monumental it was for Leroy Jethro Gibbs to take the FBI agent for backup; neither one had the advantage of knowing and working with Gibbs as he did. After Gibbs and Agent Charles left, Tony had slipped out and tailed them to the rendezvous, knowing Gibbs would expect nothing less of him. He might not be a Marine like Gibbs with his Sempre fi - leave no man behind creed, but Tony was first and foremost a cop and he didn’t leave his partner without backup. Nor would he dream of trusting the team leader’s six to a guy they believed to be a scum-sucking Mafia informant - that was just plain dumb and despite opinions to the contrary by his team, he was a long way from dumb.

Mind you, while he had seen the downfall of Agent Charles, he certainly hadn’t expected Fornell’s resurrection from beyond the grave. That had caught him off guard, just like Cate and McGee. Gibbs’ shit-eating grin when he produced Fornell had been pretty much solid-gold Gibbs ploy and Tony felt like kicking himself because in hindsight it was way obvious! See the thing was that the former Marine lived to catch people with their pants down around their ankles and to manage to pull off such a huge con on not just the FBI but NCIS too would be a huge ego boost for the arrogantly bombastic agent.

That said, it was one thing for him to pull the wool over his team’s eyes in the misguided belief it built up his aura of omnipotence, even if he managed to avoid irreparable damage to the bedrock of team dynamics, and Tony wasn’t sure that he did. Bad as that was, it was always a terrible idea to keep your director in the dark about such a massive con. Even the most understanding boss hates to be made to look like a fool, and Morrow was no exception but also doing it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation was crazy and downright arrogant.

They were never going to appreciate such cavalier treatment from an agent from a relatively small sister agency who didn’t know his place in the federal pecking order. Which was undoubtedly why Gibbs was up in the director’s office right now getting his butt keelhauled for the subterfuge he and Fornell had pulled. One thing Tony was reasonably confident about was the FBI wasn’t discussing a silver-plated invitation for Gibbs to join their ranks, not that he’d give a shit since the boss had utter contempt for the big sister agency. 

Tony rose from his seat, cracking the vertebra in his stiff lower back with a sigh of relief. With the cold case he was reviewing clutched in his hand, DiNozzo told Tim and Cate he was going down to the lab to ask Abby something about the evidence. He noted almost automatically that McGee rolled his eyes, obviously thinking he was using Gibbs absence to skive off. The Probie hadn’t figured out that when it came to investigations Tony took his job extremely seriously. He might muck around to relieve tension sometimes but never at the expense of doing his job.

Yep, the Probster still had much to learn! About the job and also about his senior field agent.

Strolling to the elevator, Tony thought about the close combat training the team had been engaged in. That was right before they’d caught the case at Quantico Base that had turned out to not only be a Marine practice bomb site but a very macabre Mafia boneyard for their victims. Horrifically, they’ll maybe never know just how many people have been dumped there, which makes DiNozzo livid when he thought of all the families who will never get closure or justice. Life sucked at times!

Shrugging as he told himself again that they couldn’t help everyone, he focused his thoughts back on Cate who’d been wrestling with Tim when Gibbs received the callout. It was plain to both Cate and Tony that McGee was holding back, more than likely because she was female, and the probie had been brought up to not hit or physically hurt a woman. Which was fine and dandy when you were in polite mixed company or you were hanging out with females who weren’t intent in getting away from your custody or wanting to kill you, but unfortunately, they frequently ran into those types of women and men in their day job. If the Probie wanted to play with the big kids as a field agent and more importantly, stay alive, then he had to get used to a whole new set of rules when it came to criminal types. 

So, they’d double-teamed him. Tony had taunted him, which knowing how super competitive he was, wasn’t exactly rocket science to get a rise out of him. The probie had swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker, flipping Todd off him and forcibly restraining her on the mat. Then she’d demanded to know why he’d been holding back on grappling with her, McGee conceded that it was about her gender. That was when she kicked him hard in the balls, leaving him curled up in the foetal position as she stalked off to the showers to change.

Off course, Probationary Agent McGee had complained long and hard to anyone who would listen to him and even people who didn’t give a shit about the hazing he had to endure as the newest kid on the MCRT, although in this instance, he was bitching about Cate. What McGee was yet to figure out was that while Caitlin Todd, Tony or the Boss might enjoy delivering some harsh, often painful lesson to him, their supplementary enjoyment had nothing to do with why they made him suffer. There were important lessons he needed to learn, which in this case was that holding back when he was out in the field against a perp because she happened to have ovaries could end up getting him or some civilian, he was protecting injured or killed.

In the real world, life and death wasn’t an abstract concept that you’d studied in the police academy or FLETC. You couldn’t afford to let your guard down for a minute because it was just possible it might be your last one. As the barmaid Vanessa should have proved to McGee, females could be just as dangerous and deadly as any guy, having dispatched multiple big tough Marines and almost cost one Anthony DiNozzo as well. 

If McGee felt aggrieved and humiliated by getting his nuts crushed in the gym at NCIS in front of his colleagues, then too damned bad. Give him embarrassment and degradation over ending up dead, any time!

Hopefully, McMortified would one day realise (Boy-Genius he claimed to be) that Cate Todd’s handing out an unpalatable dose of tough love, albeit one she enjoyed inflicting, was her way of teaching him never to go easy on an assailant, no matter their gender. Thanks to her harsh teaching methods though, Tim might just end up walking away unharmed at the end of the day. 

As the elevator arrived in the sub-basement level where Abby’s lab was situated, Tony mused that some touchy-feely do-gooder types might scream about the so-called hazing, arguing that it equated to exposing the probationary field agent to deep psychological trauma. Well, Tony had no patience with that crapola, it sure as hell wasn’t anywhere as bad as getting himself or a civilian shot. The guilt of knowing it was your fault an innocent was injured, or dead was unimaginable, and it was something you never wished upon your worst enemy. 

What well-meaning civilians could never understand was that you can tell someone like McGee (who frequently thought he knew better than his superiors did because of his high IQ) that females could be just as dangerous as males, but it wouldn’t sink in. Not with the same intensity as Cate’s kick in the testicles. That wasn’t something any guy forgot in a hurry as Tony knew from his own painful personal experience a time or two. While guys had some advantages in terms of height, weight, and muscle mass, they were also vulnerable if a female opponent was willing to exploit their vulnerabilities as Cate had demonstrated so effectively (and painfully). Fortunately, she merely left him humiliated of the NCIS mats.

Entering Abby’s domain, he pushed aside Probie’s outrage over his crushed nuts and of more immediate concern, Gibbs’ power tripping stunt keeping everyone in the dark about Fornell’s suicide. The senior field agent refocused his concentration back on the cold case under review, knowing it was time to get his head bag into the game. There had been some weird-ass trace elements found on the murdered lieutenant which he’d never encountered, so he was hoping that Abby could explain it to him. Of course, he could Google it, but Tony always found that his brain worked better if he could bounce ideas off another person’s intellectual energy. Besides which, Abby for all her Caff-pow fuelled hyperactivity and her façade of new age, touchy-feely ditz, was far better than Google when it came to anything to do with forensics.

And if he still didn’t figure out what those trace elements meant after barnstorming with Scuito, well there was always the option of picking Ducky’s brain which was jam-packed full of esoteric and oft arcane knowledge. That might help him scratch the itch he was experiencing after reading the case file. There was something other than the unfamiliar trace evidence that he’d spied, and he just had to figure out what had tripped his mental alarm.

Maybe he should talk to the former SFA whose team had investigated Lieutenant Colter’s murder. Shaunna Gottlieb had taken a leave of absence to start a family last year, but surely, she wouldn’t mind if he called her to see what she remembered. Normally he’d go ask the team lead on the case when it was first investigated, but Supervisory Special Agent Waters had retired due to a brain tumour and had sadly for his friends and family, passed away seven months ago. 

Smiling at the prospect of hanging out with his favourite Goth girl, Tony had a sudden urge to creep in and tweak one of her pigtails. Juvenile perhaps but sometimes in this job you needed to grab a little bit of joy when you could!

~o0o~

Tom observed his young agent’s shocked expression with a degree of amusement since Morrow reckoned that he knew how DiNozzo felt. Gibbs was often jokingly referred to by his peers as being Teflon-coated - as in shit didn’t seem to stick to him, no matter what crap he pulled. A sentiment that he considered carried more than a kernel of truth, not to mention a rather large helping of frustration too.

It pained him as the director to say that all too frequently, Leroy Jethro Gibbs got away with a shit- ton worth of ignoring rules and regs…sometimes he got away with bending, if not outright pissing on the self-same laws he’d sworn to uphold. Measures that would find other less connected and less charismatic agents in prison or at the least precluded from working in law enforcement again. 

Lord only knew Director Morrow was perplexed about how a Supervisory Special Agent, seemed to have a helluva lot more sway at times than he did as director of NCIS. Which was one of the chief reasons why Tom was looking for a new job – one where even if he needed to take a demotion, it would allow him to do his job without the political interference he encountered whenever he tried to pull Gibbs into line. 

Then again, today proved that even Gibbs, with all his influence and friends in high places, could sometimes go too far. Jethro had misread the sudden chilly atmosphere in the room, his biggest supporters becoming mute instead of springing to his defence as they normally would. The fact was that they’d left him swinging in the breeze, while they scurried away to their bunkers, intent on protecting their own asses with muttered phrases about _natural consequences and too damned cocky for his own good._ Not to forget that perennial proverb about _pride goeth before a fall_.

And was Tom the only one to find it rather ironic that Jethro had finally fallen foul of TPTB after uttering one of his typically arrogant throwaway remarks? In this case, he’d threatened to shoot one abrasive and uncouth gunnery sergeant from Army CID. Who'd have predicted it would suddenly set the cat amongst the pigeons? Certainly, it had caught him on the back foot. 

Apparently, in another case of exceptional irony, Gunnery Sergeant John Deluca possessed equally impressive connections of his own that in this case, trumped Gibbs. To wit, the United States Army Judge Advocate General, Edmund Turner plus the head of the USACIDC Provost Marshal General, Walt Marsden, who in turn, had some other influential friends who’d demanded punitive measures against the truculent NCIS agent. 

If this situation had cropped up before Gibbs had shot the FBI’s asset, Ari Haswari as payback for him shooting Gibbs while escaping from NCIS in March, Tom seriously doubted that such an outrageously unprofessional threat to shoot Deluca would have gained traction. More than likely, it would have been brushed aside as Gibbs being Gibbs. But not this time.

Now people knew the former sniper was not just running his mouth off – he had form!

Of course, the Assistant Director of the FBI was mighty pissed at Gibbs’ actions. The infuriatingly smug ex-Marine’s pretext for shooting Haswari – he did it to provide Ari credibility as a Palestinian terrorist. Not that such a lame excuse attempting to justify why he’d ignored a direct order not to harm the Mossad agent fooled anyone. Morrow still wasn’t sure if Jethro had truly deluded himself into swallowing that bull shit he’d fed them or not, but the bottom line was there were a lot of pissed off Fibbies out there and they didn’t believe the altruistic _I did it for him -_ crap. Not for a minute. 

When the opportunity via the Sergeant Deluca situation presented itself, they’d argued with some justification that Gibbs had become dangerously unstable of late. The FBI contended that obviously, he was prepared to put his desire for retribution above and beyond the interests of National Security. Why shouldn’t they take seriously that he was capable of carrying out a threat to shoot Deluca over jurisdictional and personality issues, when he’d already demonstrated with Haswari just how little self-control, he retained? 

Yet it wasn’t just the fiasco with Ari that turned up to bite him on the ass, as Tom conceded, reviewing the actions that had led them to this point. It was also that Gibbs had gone lone wolf again, failing to consult anyone else. Nor did he seek opinions or bother asking for approval to implement his plan to smoke out the FBI mole leaking information to the Mafia Don. No, in his typically highhanded arrogant fashion he’d unilaterally decided to fake Special Agent Fornell’s suicide in custody, determined to flush out FBI Special Agent Charles who’d been enabling Napolitano to thwart years of investigations and court cases and screw any chance of charging Ricky Napolitano or his father for the murder of FBI Agent Victor Gera.

Due to his choices, Jethro had effectively allowed Napolitano to give the FBI the finger and that made for a lot of very cranky feds. Not surprising then they wanted to respond in kind.

Tom wasn’t completely unsympathetic to the former Marine, who was extremely desperate to nail the scumbag agent. Yeah, Tom got it - undercover agents and FBI witnesses died over the years because Agent Charles was a corrupt evil sonofabitch. Gibbs’ obsessive focus on nailing the dirty agent dead to rights, while seeking to exonerate Tobias Fornell (Gibbs ex-wife’s former husband) was understandable up to a point, Tom supposed, even if most guys usually hated the fella who stole their wife. That said, his obsessiveness at the expense of the law was NOT OKAY. 

The bottom line was that Jethro never bothered to build a prima facie case against Little Ricky (Napolitano’s son and heir) a case that should have seen him charged with the murder of the undercover agent.

If the MCRT had gone through legal channels to obtain a warrant to obtain his DNA, Gera’s family and workmates might have also had the closure of knowing his killer was serving a well-deserved life sentence for the murder of the federal agent. Unfortunately, that chance was stolen from them due to the cowboy stunt of getting Ricky Napolitano’s DNA by illegally accessing paternity records. It made his subsequent arrest unlawful and the failure to Mirandize him or permit him legal representation was anathema to good law enforcement practice and inexcusable for someone who’d sworn an oath to uphold the law. 

Little wonder that the FBI was ropable; Tom couldn’t exactly blame them. If the shoe had been on the other foot and an FBI agent had pilled the stunt that Gibbs had, throwing aside years of costly investigations (in terms of assets, manpower and lives) for vengeance and to exonerate a friend, the Naval Criminal Investigative service would be livid, too. They would quite rightly want the book thrown at any cowboy agent who’d acted alone.

If Gibbs had only been willing to work with colleagues, then perhaps, they could have caught Agent Charles, charged Little Ricky, and exonerated Tobias Fornell - it could have been a win-win situation for everyone. Even if it had been necessary to let Ricky Napolitano get off to uncover the dirty agent though, that was a decision that was well and truly beyond Leroy Jethro Gibbs paygrade. It should have been made at the higher echelons of the Justice Department in concert with both agency hierarchy. He was, after all, only a senior supervisory agent and didn’t even bother to consult his director, not that Jethro had any real respect for anyone above him in the chain-of-command. 

Tom sighed in frustration. If Gibbs had expected the director would try to intercede on his behalf, he was sadly misguided, as far as Tom was concerned. Morrow personally thought that the Department of Defence and the Justice Department had been admirably restrained in how they had chosen to discipline Special Agent Leroy Gibbs. Instead of summarily terminating his employment, they had chosen a course of punitive action that was going to drive Gibbs to distraction. 

Spending six months as a special NCIS liaison to the US Army’s CID, specifically working alongside the abrasive and uncompromising Gunnery Sergeant Deluca and his partner, Micheline Phelps was going to be absolute torture to the former Marine. Both men were extreme alpha males and Gibbs being forced by the powers that be to work under Deluca’s authority would be his idea of pure unadulterated hell. If Gibbs thought Phelps would be easy to manipulate, Tom understood that she had a reputation among her CID colleagues as equally tough as Deluca.

To add further insult to injury, it had been decreed by the undersecretary of Defence who was also one of the few pencil pushers (who wasn’t a fan of the renegade agent) that Gibbs should spend a further six months as NCIS liaison to the AFOSI. Tom was under no illusion that Commander Drayton (who was Morrow’s AFOSI counterpart) would select a suitably Type- A personality to pair Gibbs with during his stint with their sister agency too. 

It was going to end up being one hellacious 12- month period for the Teflon-coated Special Agent Gibbs. Privately, the director couldn’t be happier that Jethro’s pigeons were finally coming home to roost, even though with Gibbs’ reassignment, he would be down an investigator on his major case response team. Still, his time as NCIS liaison might just result in Gibbs developing some humility and bring him to heel, although Tom reckoned that was a longshot. Yet, it gave him a year free of Gibbs and his flagrant disregard of the rule of law. Twelve blessed months free of him ignoring agency regulations and procedures and of him promoting a disdain in his subordinates for chain-of-command, unless it was implicitly obeying Gibbs and his special rules.

As Cynthia announced via the intercom that Special Agent Balboa had arrived, Tom informed his personal assistant to send him in. Gibbs being sent as a liaison to CID meant that they would require a new team leader. Although TPTB hadn’t officially demoted Jethro, no one expected that his job could be held open for 12 months, simply by appointing an acting SSA in his stead. Therefore, although it wasn’t stated explicitly, the punitive measures ensured that Gibbs was not only being humiliated and emasculated by serving in a liaison capacity (with effectively no authority to act) but effectively he was also no longer lead investigator of the MCRT. The powers that be had stopped short of firing him, but it was extremely unlikely there would be a vacancy for him when he had completed his assignments and certainly not as top dog of the major case response team back in DC. 

Tom reckoned that Gibbs would probably have preferred to have been tossed out on his ass to being presented with what was effectively a Hobson’s choice. The sheer Machiavellianism of this punishment was audacious, to say the least. When told of his ‘new assignment,’ Gibbs, in typical double B for Bastard mode, had smirked and said he would resign from NCIS rather than endure working for Deluca and then a bunch of flyboys in the air force.

Which was when it was pointed out to him rather bluntly that they could do this the easy way, or the hard way and it made no difference to the Department of Defence and Department of Justice. He could go in as an NCIS liaison and in 12 months return to NCIS or, since he was a Marine reservist, they could reactivate his on-duty status, effective immediately, and then assign him as a Marine liaison to Army CID and AFOSI. Thereafter, having completed the 12-month assignment as a liaison, he would be transferred to the USMC CID. 

Given that typically, the USMC CID was responsible for: complex misdemeanour and felony investigations, narcotics cases and often working cooperatively with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies (including NCIS), CID would be a huge step down to the arrogant special agent after his time in NCIS. Sure, there were other less demeaning responsibilities in the USMC CID for an ex-federal agent (particular a ferally territorial and egotistical one as Jethro) for example assisting the U.S. Attorney's Office, the local District Attorney's Office, and the Staff Judge Advocate Office in the prosecution of criminal cases. However, given his well-earned reputation for ignoring pesky things like the rule of law and failing to obtain lawful warrants from judges, it wasn’t likely he’d find anyone putting their hands up wanting his assistance.

Of course, it was always possible he could find himself maintaining the Provost Marshals Office / Marine Corps Police Dept. evidence repository; something that would bore him to tears or perhaps they’d tap him on the shoulder to conduct personnel inquiries in Internal Affairs. Other even more hated duties (from Gibbs perspective) included protective services details, crisis negotiation and liaison with the Family Assistance Program regarding law enforcement aspects of domestic violence in the Corps. While all were integral to upholding the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Gibbs was patently unsuitably to carry out many of these crucial roles in the USMC CID. Little wonder then that Gibbs had decided to accept his assignment as a federal agent liaison rather than a member of the USMC. At least theoretically, he could resume the duties of a federal agent at the end of twelve months.

As Special Agent Eric (Ric) Balboa knocked respectfully and the director invited him to enter, Morrow smiled at the former navy officer who’d joined the Agency some nine years ago. Seeing concern comingled with curiosity on the senior supervisory agent’s face, Tom smiled briefly to let him know that he wasn’t in trouble, nor was Agent DiNozzo. Balboa relaxed slightly as the director invited both agents to join him at his conference table. They all had a lot of logistics and details to discuss.

Several hours later, both men exited his office looking somewhat dazed. He didn’t blame them. After several years of Gibbs pretty much appearing to be bulletproof, the rules of the game had altered. Shifted quite drastically by anyone’s standards and now there were changes afoot, not just logistically but it would fundamentally transform a lot of things at the agency. Hopefully for the better! 

~o0o~

The senior supervisor agent watched as DiNozzo and Special Agent Greer’s senior field agent, a former SEAL who for some unknown reason had been named Michael (call me Mick) Carmichael, sparring with each other in the boxing ring. Both were deadly serious, oblivious to the cuts and bruise they inflicted upon each other; their intensity left everyone else in the gym mesmerised. All activity had slowly ceased as one by one, the other agents joined Balboa watching what most had initially considered an uneven challenge. Ric wasn’t sure if it was their joint lethality of purpose or the dramatic metamorphosis in Tony’s attitude, his stance, his laser-like glare that drew people in. It was like he was a different person entirely from the happy-go-lucky, skirt-chasing jock. 

Most people had observed DiNozzo dancing around in the ring, in Abby Scuito’s own words _‘like a demented improvisational dancer on crack’,_ whenever he sparred with Gibbs. His efforts always resulted in him getting his ass handed to him as the former Marine kicked it around the boxing ring. Not surprisingly then, the majority of people at the office who saw those antics tended to view him as a frivolous outlandish buffoon. Essentially, they saw him as someone not smart enough to realise how foolish it was to poke the bear, also known as Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Although, it must be said that it wasn’t just in the ring or on the mats in the gym that DiNozzo was foolish enough to taunt and tease the singularly grumpy agent which was his demeanour on a good day.

As Balboa looked around casually, he noted Todd and McGee (complete with a cup this time) had ceased their grappling session, transfixed by the clash between the senior field agents. The pair inched their way closer towards the ring to watch the contest between the two agents who seemed oblivious to the crowd that was gathering to watch.

Balboa smirked like the Cheshire cat, seeing the steeliness of Todd’s gaze as she observed the senior field agent, almost as if for the first time. Good! She was finally seeing what had been right there in front of her nose the whole time she’d known and profiled DiNozzo.

McGee meanwhile was staring wide-eyed, his usual deer in the headlight’s expression was in evidence which usually appeared when Gibbs was in the middle of a tirade. His gaze flickering back and forth between DiNozzo, Carmichael and Todd as if the answer to this mystery would materialise right out of the ether. 

He must have realised that such magical thinking was not going to materialise because he cleared his throat before squeaking slightly, “Ah Cate, what’s going on?”

Risking a glance at the grinning Supervisory Special Agent who would be acting head of an expanded MCRT (at least temporarily) she snarked, “Seems like we’ve been suckered, Probie.”

The querulous computer genius looked over at their new acting leader questioningly, noting unhappily that he was staring at them, smugly amused.

“What does that mean?” he asked Cate, wishing she didn’t enjoy playing her profiler games with him, although he always laughed uproariously when she taunted DiNozzo _. But c’mon, the guy was a jerk – always calling him Probie and other annoying McNicknames_.

“It means, Probationary Field Agent McGee, that your SFA has been downplaying his hand-to-hand combat skills,” Director Morrow explained gravely, having approached the boxing ring unnoticed by the two junior agents.

Morrow glanced over at Balboa and said approvingly, “See you wasted no time in setting DiNozzo straight about a few things?”

Balboa grinned like the cat who swallowed the canary. “Told him that I didn’t need him to run interference for the rest of the team or be my damned whipping boy, Sir. Said when people screw up, they need to be responsible for their own shit,” he said bluntly as he started at Cate and Tim.

“Then I told him that a real Marine didn’t need their 2IC running acting as a relief valve when they were feeling fragile and needed to blow off steam. Said I expected him to stop concealing his skills and I’ll ensure that the chain of command is respected. That he and Roz will have real authority over the junior agents since I’m not intimidated by having competent 2ICs, as Goldstein can a test.”

Morrow nodded. “Excellent job.” 

Balboa stopped talking to watch Tony as he appeared to become distracted by hearing the director’s voice. He half-turned his head and Carmichael went in for the kill, only to realise a split-second too late after committing himself that it had been a feint. Striking like a cobra, DiNozzo avoided Mick’s lethal right hook easily enough and with an economy of movement that made a mockery of his former dancing technique, followed up the play, using his opponent’s momentum against him.

The ex-cop finished up the ploy by sweeping Mick’s legs out from under him and restraining the former navy SEAL on the mat in a hold he’d learnt while working with some of Macaluso’s muscle. Unlike some of his colleagues, Tony wasn’t a purist. He didn't mind mixing up styles, acting skills and hand to hand techniques when he fought, making it more difficult for his opponents to anticipate what his next move might be. 

As a bunch of cheers and boos broke out, Tom flashed a faux stern glance at Ric and said, “Who won the pool?”

Balboa shrugged. “Didn’t set it up,” he replied carefully avoiding answering the question or looking at his two newest agents who were standing looking gobsmacked at the SEAL as he regained his feet and shook hands with DiNozzo.

“Sneaky bastard, ain'tcha? You’ve been holding that one back on me, Tony?” Carmichael joshed him good-naturedly, not in the least shocked if Morrow was any judge, leading him to infer that it wasn’t the first time.

Shrugging offhandedly, he said, “Not the first one to tell me that, Mickey-Boy. Hold back on ya? Maybe! Where’s the fun in life when there’s no mystery, man? And FYI, that particular hold is courtesy of Joey Romano of the Philly Mob,” he permitted himself a grin.

Mick scowled, “Damn! A two-bit hood? I wanna rematch, Dino!”

“Okay,” he said good-naturedly, despite his bruises and cuts. “But let’s go back to sparring sans our onlookers next time, yeah?” Tony bargained, pulling a face that expressed mild distaste.

The former SEAL shrugged, “Okay with me. But why’d ya wanna today?”’

DiNozzo looked over at Balboa, neutrally. “My new boss told me to stop acting like a demented barfly in the ring,” he said paraphrasing a conversation that had said a good deal more.

Meanwhile, Morrow repeated his earlier question. “Who won the pool?”

Balboa looked at various SFA’s positioned around the ring and slowly raised his hand while every senior field agent bar Carmichael and DiNozzo raised theirs too. Morrow tried not very successfully to hide his smirk but not all that hard.

“I see,” he said placidly.

Cate was not amused by their levity, although his estimation of the former Secret Service agent was that she tended to the humourless end of the spectrum. Which was especially the case when it came to male teammates; the exception being when she was playing unkind mind games and believed she had the upper hand. That in his opinion made her something of a bully; he’d also never seen her joke at her own expense.

Roz Goldstein, Balboa’s senior field agent, like the observant senior field agent she was, noted the brief flash of rage that flitted across Cate’s face as she tried to school it into blankness.

“What Cate? Just because you can’t see beyond the nose on your face doesn’t mean that Tony’s fellow SFA’s don’t know what he’s made of. Have you ever come across the term confirmation bias when you were studying profiling? Because you and Probationary Agent McGee might want to review the theory of it before you decide to run a pool betting against your partner again,” she snarked at the fuming agent. “He’s a hell of an agent but what else would you expect for the senior field agent for the MCRT?” 

Although Todd bared her teeth in a facsimile of a reciprocating smirk, Ric was pretty sure she was just plain pissed, not that it surprised him. Roz got away with it only because she had ovaries too and also Cate’s superior. If one of the male SFA’s had attempted to admonish her, even as mildly as Goldstein did, then she’d be screaming about sexual harassment and sexist derogatory remarks right now.

Looking over at Carmichael and DiNozzo heading off to the showers exchanging in a liberal dose of good-natured smack-talk between them, Balboa ordered the rest of the team back to their workouts, deciding against pairing up Todd and Goldstein just yet. He exchanged a look with his SFA who nodded her head subtly before dragged their junior agent Sam Watts towards the free-weights offering to act as a spotter for him.

Morrow indicated that he wished to speak to Balboa in private, Ric followed the director out of the gym into the corridor. Morrow smiled and gave him a brief pat on the back. 

“Nice work, Balboa. Looks like you managed to get through to DiNozzo. Did he tell you I’m going to send him off to work with JAG for a fortnight to help him get his head out of his ass? Can’t believe he went along with that dumbass stunt to get Ricky Napolitano’s DNA from that paternity test.” Tom said angrily. He knows better than that, damn it! I’m also gonna send him back to FLETC to complete a couple of advanced courses in the next couple of months, brush up on legal issues.” 

Balboa nodded. “Yeah, he mentioned it. “I’d say he’s feeling plenty ashamed about not getting the warrant, too. Told me he forgotten his roots but said he wants to get back to them, Sir.” Ric paused before adding,” Think that stunt between him and Agent Carmichael today was intended to show me he’s serious about getting his shit together. Honestly, he’s been floundering around ever since Gibbs started pulling the rug out from under him, telling the Bobbsey Twins that they could ignore his orders.” 

Morrow smiled. “That’s good news if he’s willing to pull his head out of his ass. How did the rest of the MCRT deal with the news that you were their acting team leader?”

“Well, they were pretty shocked that Gibbs had been reassigned. Also, they weren’t expecting you to assign my old team to the MCRT either. I think that between Goldstein and DiNozzo as senior field agents and myself to whip them into shape vis a vis the chain-of-command, we’ll have a team that can function lawfully and follow orders from superiors.”

“And you don’t see a problem when DiNozzo leads the actual investigative side of cases?” Tom quizzed.

Balboa frowned, “Not from my agents, Sir. We all know that DiNozzo is the most experienced investigator and that includes me too. The guy’s worked homicides, vice, mass murders, serial killing, sex crimes, kidnapping, hostage negotiation situations and also organised crime as a cop, a detective and an agent on the major case response team. It makes absolute sense for him take charge of major and violent crimes, which after all is the purview of the MCRT.”

Tom nodded. “I know but it is a unorthodox situation. If Phil Dobbs and Viv Blackadder were still on the MCRT then I’d have more than likely just promoted him to team leader – he’s filled in before and done a more than capable job. Unfortunately, Gibbs white-anted his authority with the junior agents after he hired Todd and McGee - God only knows what he was thinking. I think that neither Todd nor McGee would accept his leadership at this point, so I’m not even going to try it.”

Shrugging, Ric said, “From our perspective, it’s a non-brainer – Sam, Roz and I are good with it and we’re expecting to pick up a lot of knowledge and experience of violent crimes working under his direction. The only issue I can see with this slightly unorthodox situation is that Todd and McGee might think that they’re more qualified than him, given their somewhat inflated assessment of their skills. Thanks for that, Jethro,” he said with a touch of disdain.

“But should that prove to be the case, guess they’ll find out I can be just as much of a bastard as Gibbs is if they don’t follow orders,” he assured Morrow. “Seeing that my orders to them will be that DiNozzo has point on investigations, then that would amount to two counts of insubordination and I’ll have no hesitation in giving them a kick up the butt. They’ll find themselves back at FLETC if they’re insubordinate,” he warned the director grimly.

As Tom dismissed his new acting team leader and made his way back up to his office on the mezzanine level above the bullpen, he permitted himself a small sigh. Ric Balboa seemed to have the newly expanded MCRT under control, although it was early days of course. If it worked out, he would appoint a permanent lead in a few months, but for now, Ric had his work cut out undoing a lot of damage to the MCRT team dynamics.

Even so, for the first time in a long while he was feeling optimistic about the future of NCIS and his directorship. Maybe he would hold off on circulating his CV amongst the other federal agencies for a few more months so he could see how things played out. 


End file.
